Just
returned from yet another trip to Fontainebleau. Ascension Day was a bit wet.
We managed to climb for 2 hours at Gorge aux Chat where I did "Variaspel" in the
first try. It was however not a flash because it is a variation on "Sa pelle au
logis" which I did before and hence a bit lame actually.
The second
day we had an early start and went to Isatis. After warming up I tried "Divine
Decadence", which is the sit start of "Surplomb Static" but the first move is so
freaking hard I could barely lift my but off the ground.
When it started to get
a bit more crowed we went to the second sector where I spend quite some time on "El Poussif" which also didn’t go well. I could not manage to push hard enough
and get my foot on the bulge.
Some Dutch
guys were having a go at the nearby boulder named "El Poussah". They were kind enough to let me use their crashpads so I decided to give that boulder a go as well but
had very little confidence in a successful sent. To my surprise my toe was positioned
well in the third try and I easily managed to top the boulder. Once your toe is
perfectly placed the next moves are beautiful and actually not so difficult
anymore. I am very pleased with this result.
In the
third sector of Isatis I finally managed to do the last move of "De Brevitate
Vitae". This boulder had turned into a frustrating project. I had been trying it
over and over again on several previous trips and the rock-over you have to do
to get to the last move failed every single time. This time it worked out well. I am happy to see some progress.
I also did "le Surplomb Feuillete Gauche" which
is quite scary but with lots of crashpads and Ricardo being around to catch me,
I had the nerves to top it.
Saturday
was spent at Roche aux Oiseaux and Mont Pivot were I did a number of easy
boulders but nothing difficult.
Sunday we
went back to Gorge aux Chat because a friend of mine got very close to topping
his first 7a in Bleau on Thursday so it would give him a couple more hours to
try it again.
I managed to do “la Ritournelle” and “un Franc de Kilometre”.
All in all
a successful trip in which I managed to do five 7a’s. My next trip is 8 weeks
away which will give me time to train a bit more and get stronger. I will
definitively need lots of strength to be able to do the boulders on my
wish-list in Rocklands. So much looking forward to go there.