September 03, 2022 - Back to the slaughter house.

Last weekend it didn't feel good to leave "Cadeau pour un Pote" in Videlles l'Abattoir undone despite being able to do all the moves. I was determined to back soon, convinced that I would be able to finish it when being fresh instead of near the end of a session. This morning, it was a bit of risk to go back to that shady spot after yesterday's and last night's rain, but I took my chances and went anyway. With some joy, I found the boulder dry and walked back to the car to get a second crashpad.
I still remembered the moves and on my first warmup attempt, made it passed the morpho crux, the far move to the small two finger pocket left hand, took the bad pinch, was able to place  my right foot, went for the good hold on the left, crossing over with the right hand, and ... missed it. I didn't feel too bad about it, because for a first attempt it was definitely good and I figured it would probably go down soon. The latter turned out to be an overstatement.
For the next hour and a half or so, I kept on failing on the crux move. The pocket suddenly seemed out of reach again, just like last week. It started to become frustrating, and I was forced to take longer breaks in between attempts to keep the friction and spare my right arm. Then suddenly, it clicked, I passed the crux again and stuck the final move to the good hold. It was a great relief!
This definitely felt harder than most of the other 297 7B's that I did by now. Maybe it's due to the morpho aspect of it, but "Cadeau pour un Pote" could very well be 7B+ if you ask me.

Fontainebleau - Videlles l'Abattoir - Cadeau pour un Pote 7B

September 01, 2022 - A Sacred half an hour.

Yesterday evening when I was doing some work in the garden, I was moving some logwood and was very spooked when I almost grabbed quite a big snake. At first, I thought it was a poisonous viper, but after doing some research, I'm quite sure that it was a harmless 'Couleuvre à Collier', apparently easily and quite commonly mistaken with a viper. Some minor details make me believe however that it wasn't a viper, but rather the 'Couleuvre à Collier'. If someone with more knowledge could confirm that, it will be appreciated.
I left it where it was, but it was suddenly gone not much later.

Gave me a good scare!

This evening, while doing yet some more work in the garden, I suddenly felt the urge to go for a climb after dinner, and that's exactly what I did.
I went to Châteauveau with the intention of trying "Le Sacre du Printemps (gauche)". Along with its longer version, the only lines that I still had to do on this isolated beautiful boulder.
I quickly worked out the crux but still needed three attempts from the start to actually finish it off. All in all, it was only half an hour of actual climbing, but it felt Sacred.
I deliberately left the slightly longer version for another time. It will be a good excuse to go back there on another evening, probably quite soon.

Fontainebleau - Châteauveau - Le Sacre du Printemps (gauche) 7B

August 28, 2022 - The devil's playground.

It doesn't happen a lot, but today Pieter came with a counter proposal to go Roche au Diable. Having never climbed there before, it was a proposal that I happily accepted. It turned out to be a fruitful session for both of us.
We warmed up with "Township".

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Township 7A

Followed by "Nuage de Pluie", that I flashed with relative ease. 

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Nuage de Pluie 7A

After many years of climbing together, Pieter has finally learned to use toehooks and seems to start being comfortable with it, to his advantage.

Pieter using his toes in "Nuage de Pluie".

There was some confusion about how "Bushman" was going through the roof, and after we finally figured it out, I topped it out on my second attempt, soon followed by Pieter, again using toehooks to his advantage.

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Bushman 7B

I had some fun starting in "Bushman" and traversing over to finish in "Capetown". Beautiful moves through that big roof.

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Capetown (départ gauche) 6C(6C+)

The huge boulder really is a bouldering playground and I ended the session doing "Township" again, but this time starting more to the left, adding a couple of moves to tighten the difficulty a bit.

Fontainebleau - Roche au Diable - Township (départ gauche) 7A(7A+)

August 27, 2022 - Not so tip top but still a hit.

Even though I already went to Videlles les Roches several times, I had never visited the area of Videlles l'Abattoir right next to it. Pieter is in the forest again this weekend and looking forward to climbing in the shade of the dense trees, he was keen to join.
As usual when visiting a new area, I had lots of boulders that I wanted to see and try, which makes it difficult to focus on something specific. We tried several boulders, but I only got away with "Tip Top Hit", which I did on my second attempt while warming up.
I wanted to also get away with the beautiful "Cadeau pour un Pote", of which I did all the moves separately but as it was after several hours of climbing, couldn't find the energy anymore to link it all together. It's a boulder that I will go back for soon though, making it my main goal for the day.

Fontainebleau - Videlles l'Abattoir - Tip Top Hit 7A

Pieter doing one of the beautiful moves of "Tip Top Hit".

August 21, 2022 - Pulling Godzilla's tail.

I must admit that my body felt a bit sore when I got up this morning. I did feel like going for a short quick climb though and made my way to the "King" boulder in the small area now known as Boissy Roncevaux. My intention was to pull Godzilla's tail by going for "La Queue de Godzilla", one of many lines on that beautiful boulder.
I had a look at the start, checked out the line and made it on my first attempt. Beside "La Queue de Godzilla (prolongé)", which makes a loop and goes all around the boulder to exit above the starting point, I have now done all the known lines on the boulder, however, one can think of many more variations and games.

Fontainebleau - Boissy Norgevaux - La Queue de Godzilla 7A+

August 20, 2022 - Bringing a stick to a gun fight.

In May of this year, the Festival de l'Escalade de Bloc Durable took place in Milly-la-Forêt. For the occasion a (not so) new area was made available to the public, the area of Haute Pierre just outside the village. Some boulders were already opened there almost twenty years ago, but being a private hunting ground, it never became widely known to the public. Apparently when the land owner died, he left the land to the village of Milly-la-Forêt, and the mayor had allowed the creation of several circuits and the opening of lots of boulders. There is however, still an existing agreement with the hunters to keep on using the land as hunting ground, so parts of the area are forbidden for climbers and do not allow opening boulders within them. Therefor, a small path was constructed and all the boulders that are allowed to be climbed can be found along that path. It is thus advised to stay within proximity of the path and not to enter the forbidden zones. Arguing with a bunch of hunters is like bringing a stick to a gun fight. They have guns, climbers don't.
Thanks to the indications I received from Bart (Van Raaij), I found the path quickly and even more thanks to the topo that he made, I found the problems of interest without issues. All the problems that I wanted to do are part of the new black circuit, so all I had to do, was follow the path up and around the hill, and try what I passed on my way.

The first problem that I passed on my way was "Le Sept" (black 7). I flashed it on my warmup, but I must admit that it was with a bit of luck.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Le Sept 7A

Further up the hill along the path, I wanted to try "Charrière" (black 12). A quite hard dyno that makes the whole grade. It didn't take very long, but it definitely wasn't a give-away for me.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Charrière 7B

On the same boulder, on the right arete, I also got away with "Banco" (black 13). This one rather felt hard for the grade and might as well be 7A+ if you ask me. A very nice problem nevertheless.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Banco 7A

On the boulder just above, on the top of the hill, I made a quick ascent of "Bruyère Noire" (black 14). Sketchy first few moves followed by an easy topout. Even though I thought that I would flash it, it did require a handful of attempts just to get passed those few first moves.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Bruyère Noire 7A

On the backside of the boulder next to it, "Un Centime" (black 17) was sitting in the sun and despite it being quite hot there, I got away with it on my first attempt from the start after having worked out the last move, which s the crux of the problem.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Un Centime 7A

Because it's categorized as a traverse, I doubted to try "Deux Centimes" (sitstart in black 15 and finish in black 17), but decided to go for it anyway and made it my first attempt.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Deux Centimes 7A+

Following the path back down on the other side of the hill, I quickly found the sort of hidden roof of "Sous Quelle Pierre?" (black 24), worked out the moves separately and then finished it on my first attempt when coming from the start. I really enjoyed this one.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Sous Quelle Pierre? 7B

Of course still following the path, I continued my way to "Finale" (black 30) and flashed the lower starting "Finale (du bas)" with quite some ease. This rather felt like soft 7A+ at most.

Fontainebleau - Haute Pierre - Finale (du bas) 7B

I had hoped to still do "Equilibrium" (black 34), but my skin was starting to hurt and my body was complaining. When I then climbed until past the overhang and had the sun full on in my face for the hard mantle, I threw in the towel. This will have to be one to come back for some other time, as long as it's not during the hunting season.
It was a good session.

Thanks again to Bart (Van Raaij) for the indications and the very well drawn topo. It helped me to stay on a roll.
I heard that he will be releasing a new "5+6" topo in a few months, and afterwards there might come a new "7+8" as well. I can advise everyone to buy them, even if it are still the current versions. You will be supporting bleau.info with it as well.

August 17, 2022 - Boogie man.

We hadn't seen much of the forecasted rain the past few days, but when the clouds had gone going very grey by the time that I finished work today, I knew that I only had a short window of climbing. No time to call Bart (Van Raaij) and Markus (Neher) who are staying in a nearby gîte, so I went to the very nearby "La Ségognole" alone, with the intention to try "Homegrown Backyard Boogie".
Being so close to home, I of course had already tried a few times, but never found a good method to actually reach the slopers on the edge of the roof. After carefully analyzing the few possibilities, I finally found a way to get to the slopers, but it turned out that topping out with only bad slopers was certainly not a give-away. A few drops of rain had fallen in the meantime, but luckily not enough to make the boulder wet.
A couple of attempts later, trying only the topout, I also found a way there and went for another attempt from the start. It's a good thing that I only needed one, because barely ten minutes after I topped out, it started raining hard, very hard.
Not the nicest problem around, but definitely worth it when you have done almost everything else in the area.

Fontainebleau - La Ségognole - Homegrown Backyard Boogie 7B