Fontainebleau

A few tips for any of you thinking about going to Fontainebleau this year.

La Baleine 7a+

1.  Everything that you want can be found at Carrefour.  Imagine a Super Walmart on steriods.  If you stand on one end of the market and look down the center isle you cannot see the other end.  It too, like the endless boulders of the forest, is overwhelming.  If you don’t want to make a trip all the way to Carrefour then there is a nice little market in the middle of Font.

2.  Don’t think about camping.  It is not worth it, unless the weather is perfect (haha).  For around 10 Euro (as opposed to 7 Euro for camping) you can stay in a gite with electricity, a bed, a kitchen, a shower, cool wrapping paper covered walls, and more…  There is no question about what to do.  You do need 3-8 people to really make it cheap though, but you’ll make friends (unless you’re a jerk). To get a gite, contact the gite office in Font. The people are really nice, and most importantly they speak English. Contact info:  4 Rue Royale, 77300 Fontainebleau, France -01 60 74 99 99

3.  If you climb harder than 7a, get the 7+8 guidebook.  Get a fontainebleau map.  Without this, or someone to show you around, you’ll be lost.

4.  There is a sporting goods store next to Carrefour called Decathalon.  It carries climbing equipment like shoes, chalk, pads, and pretty much anything else you need.  Sweet.

5.  You should go to font.  This will help you get here:  Fontainebleau is only a click away.

Well, our time in the gite has passed and now we move onto camping. Unfortunately we’ve grown quite accustomed to our little cabin in La Genevraye, and needless to say it has spoiled us greatly. There are no more gites available due to Easter, and to complicate matters further it has been raining for the last few days and doesn’t show any signs of stopping. So now we sit in McDonalds, again, and long for good weather.

If it doesn’t clear up soon we’re going to jet set down to Switzerland, and in a hurry. We’ve heard that things are significantly more expensive there so we’ll be loading the car with as much food as we can pack in to keep our expenses to a minimum.

If you are into superstitions, please cross your fingers for us. We need a few more days of good weather to complete some projects. Hell, cross your toes for us, your legs, your arms, or anything else you can think of to cross. Send us your energy, prayers, thoughts, a France sized tarp, or a giant laser we can shoot into the sky to melt the clouds. When all you want to do is rock climb, it’s a bit grim sitting inside a McDonalds watching it piss rain outside.

On the up side, I had my very first Big Mac today…..

After a month and a half one would think an area would get old. One would think that the mind would start to ponder the idea of moving to a new region to try new things and meet new people. This is not so. People say that time flies when you’re having fun. Never has this been more accurate than the last month I’ve spent here. In the blink of an eye I’m forced to begin thinking about moving to new places.

Our time here has been filled with amazing people, good times, and plenty of rock scaling. We’re living in a six person gite with 11 people. After climbing we stop at the store, buy food for the night, and hurry home to eat. The corks are pulled, the cans are cracked, and bottles are opened. We sit around the table and tell stories of the day, the past, and of our friends and family. I relate to others not just through climbing, but also through situations that other climbers tend to get themselves in. Everyone has their epic stories, their trump card, and it never gets old to hear them.

If you ever travel to the Bleau to climb be forewarned that weather is the issue. It is fairly hit or miss. The first part of the trip was loaded with snow, rain, and clouds. Then the heinous cold came. A week of perfect weather then commenced, enough time to go to a new area everyday and get projects all over the forest. Then came the heat. Not hot enough to not climb, but enough to make you long for the cold. It’s good though… If you like excuses, Font never ceases to supply them.

Alex and I have begun to think about what is next. We seem to have settled on going to Spain, and enjoying the company of our new found friends Doug and Andrea. We’ll find new language there, a new culture, and many new experiences.

This is my trip. A once and a lifetime excursion where I can lay it all out on the line, and see what happens. I can’t wait for the next four and a half months. I love waking up excited, spending all day excited, and going to bed ecstatic for the next day.

More photos to come.

It has been super cold for most of our trip but the heat came in a few days ago. Taking a look back at my goals and comparing them to what has happened so far in the trip will reveal that I’ve been unsuccessful in climbing anything at my limit. However, I have been successful in improving my climbing on less than steep sandstone. Which gives a glimpse into what climbing in font is all about. The easy problems are just as fun as the hard ones. Even lowball V0- or 5a can be a blast. The blue (easy) circuit at Isatis is fantastic. I think the reason is the sandstone. Moving on smooth sandstone holds is more fun than granite, in my opinion.

Andrea on La Baleine 7a+

Before I started this adventure, the longest climbing trip I had been on was two weeks. I thought that six weeks in font would be a lot of time and I would be able to project hard problems more than I have in the past. The problem is font is so massive that we seem to go to new areas everyday and climb on new problems. I haven’t spent more than two days on a problem since we got here. Clearly it is a good thing to have so many classic boulders just a short drive away but it means that three months here would be ideal in order to project a few harder lines that are on my list.

Alex on Multipass. Photo by Ander

The other issue with font is the skin factor. Yesterday we went to Petit Bois and Rocher Greau after taking a rest day the day before. After warming up I worked on Big Dragon which is a rad arete with a sharp crux hold. I tried it maybe 10 times and had to quit because my skin was shredding on both hands. I had enough skin left to try Tigre et Dragon (another classic 8a) three times before my tips were bright pink and ready to explode! Granted it was a balmy 70 degrees so that didn’t help at all! Now I’m on a two or three rest day period before getting back out to the boulders. It’s supposed to be in the 50’s and 60’s next week which isn’t ideal but I’m sure we’ll have some rad days and finally get some projects completed!

Photo by Les

Photo by Les

Top three on my list at the moment are le Surplomb de la Mee 8a, Tigre et Dragon 8a, and Big Dragon 8a. I’ve tried them all briefly and feel like they will go next time I get to them with skin and decent temps!

Doug fired up at the BBQ. Photo by Les.

It’s looking like we’ll hang out in font until the first or second week of April. Not sure what our next destination is. Probably either England, Spain, or Switzerland.

Eiffel Tower. Photo by Les

Life is good. Ever since our first two weeks of poor weather it has been awesome. If anything, it has been too cold lately, with highs in the upper 30s/low 40s. Justin and I both did our first font 8a, Synapses, a few days ago. I followed that up with a fun day at Bas Cuvier, which is one of the most popular areas of font. It wasn’t too crowded for a change and I was able to quickly tick off a couple of old classics of the area, Hypothese 7c+ and La Balance 7c+.

Yesterday we went out to Buthiers to see what the area had to offer. I was pleasantly surprised with lots of tall, beautiful aretes. The area is stacked with quality problems including Lady Big Claque 7a, Controle A 7c, Masters Edge 7b, and many more! At the end of the day I finally found a project that I’m fully psyched on! It’s name is Partage, it’s a 20+ foot arete, it’s 8a+, and it’s one of the best looking lines I’ve ever seen. It looks way better than this photo can show you:

Skin seems to be more of an issue now than it had been earlier in the trip. I had two rest days before butthiers and I need another rest day because my tips are screaming! I made a list of problems I want to send and it’s full of 20 problems 7c+ and harder. I’ve got a lot of work to do!

We had a couple more arrivals from the states so now our 6 person gite is home to 10. Three of us are on the floor and two more are sleeping in the back of their car. Not ideal but it sure is cheap! We’re each spending about 5 euros a day for the gite.

It’s funny how four months in Europe sounds like a long time but we’ve just finished month one in no time at all! We were thinking 6 weeks in Font but the weather and climbing is so good that I can’t see leaving until April. I just hope I can tick a few problems from my list before then!

Attention Chef d'Oeuvre 7a

We finished a video for Black Diamond which should be on their journal shortly and we have a couple more vids in the pipeline.

el Poussah 7a

Andrea and her new friend

Team Fosters

Rock climbing has restarted full bore after a spell of rain. We finally had a few days with a proper circuit warm-up on dry boulders! It was amazing! For the first two weeks we didn’t have a 24 hour period without some type of precipitation so it feels great to finally have multiple days with sunny skies!

Kevin on Misericorde 7c+

The climbing here is great, the rock is awesome and there are so many boulders it’s unreal. Warming up at Isatis is a blast. There are so many easy problems that you can get a good flow on the rock and try to maintain that fluid movement as you start working on harder climbs. When it’s cold and dry, the rock is very sticky but not nearly as grippy as the rock in the southeast, especially the feet. Pof has been used extensively here for quite some time which has done a number on the rock. Pof is a resin that climbers have used here to help their feet stick to the rock. From what I hear it works well in the short term, unfortunately the long term result is slippery black rock that is very hard for your rubber to stick to.

Leslie on Misericorde 7c+

Leslie on Poussif 7a+

Guillome on Poussif 7a+

Titouan playing with chalk

Larchant

A few words from Les:

Alex has switched into full crush mode… He’s too modest to tell you so I will. Every problem he gets on gets done with the quickness, unless it’s a 6a warmup at Isatis.

Like Alex said earlier, the weather has switched from relentless and crappy to beautiful and inspiring. Conditions could not be better. The rock glitters in the sun as if it is begging to be climb.

A restday in Paris was in tall order, so the crew buckled up and cruised up the A6 to the magical land of:

Guys in really short shorts

People sitting on stairs in a fashionable manner

Amazing Sites

AKA the Notre Dame

Justin enjoying a falafel

The infamous Almond Croissant (worth the trip to France)

Sundev staring curiously at security camera

We also visited the catacombs which was pretty mindblowing.

Catacombs

Catacombs

Until next post…

Au revior.

Not much has changed since our last post, we’ve climbed a few boulders, fallen off a few boulders. No snow but we’ve been having a bit of rain. Haven’t had a completely dry day yet but we did have a couple of good climbing days. We’re getting some much needed rest today and we’ll be back out tomorrow or the next day. We’ve seen a lot of classic lines to keep us busy for awhile!

Our Home

The Gite

The Gite

Big Golden (haven't sent yet)

Big Golden

Justin sending T-Rex

I think we’re on a rock climbing trip but I’m not quite sure yet. We’ve been out to the slowly drying boulders everyday. It rained a bit a couple days ago which was nice since it washed the remaining snow away. Yesterday we went out to Cul de Chien to work on Eclipse, a classic 7C. The weather was nice even though some of the boulders were still wet. It felt good to finally do something that took more than three tries. Up until now I’ve sent the easier climbs quickly and haven’t succeeded on anything that felt hard! Feels like the trip has finally started!

Carnage

Eclipse

The gite (rental house) is now running at peak capacity with the addition of Andrea and Doug, aka the Awesome Aussies, as well as additions to Team America with Steve, Justin, and Ander all calling La Genevraye home. A few more are on the way so there may be some gite shuffling in the coming days. Speaking of nationalities, up until two days ago we hadn’t met any other Americans. We’ve met a lot of English fellows as well as many other Europeans. The boulders are interesting since English seems to be the international language of choice. You’re just as likely to run into someone from outside the country as you are a frenchman, so a friendly hello works well most of the time. It’s been great hanging out with folks from all over the world.

Today (Saturday) we woke up to see big white flakes looking for a happy home on the ground outside. As Doug said, “I haven’t seen snow like this in days!” Fortunately it has warmed up a bit (above freezing) so the snow didn’t last more than a few hours. Again we filled our rest day with a walk through a new area to scope boulders with a shiny coating of water. It seems checking the weather in Font is futile as it may or may not rain everyday. The best method is to wake up and if it looks dry, then go climbing and save rest days for the next time it rains.

Thursday evening we finally left McDonalds to do some grocery shopping before making our way to our friends’ gite to hang out and drink a beer. We finally headed off to our snow covered tents sometime after midnight. Unfortunately we didn’t make it.

Driving conditions were absolutely terrible. Snow was coming down hard and sideways. We only had to drive a few kilometers to our campsite but we hit a section of road with a foot of snow which quickly halted our forward progress. We tried to dig ourselves out but the whole car was stuck in the snow. We were stuck in our little hatchback all night in 20 degree temps. We managed to sleep a couple hours but that was about it. Three cars stopped early in the morning to help but even with two people pushing the car, we couldn’t get it out. When daylight finally came we dug a lot more snow out from the tires and pushed the car back and forth to get it on the field and drive around the snow filled road.

Almost out

Back at camp

We finally reached camp at 9AM. We were in a daze and didn’t quite know what to do. Ironically after spending all night in the car failing to sleep, we both passed out in the front of the car for a few hours at the campsite. After the nap we decided that our campsite wasn’t worth driving to anymore. Not only were there creepy folk living in RVs but it was far far away from any rock climbing. We made our delirious way into Fontainebleau to the gite office (across from the chateau) to reserve some shelter. The only gite available was a 6 person gite for 300 euros per week. Turns out it is the same gite that a friend had reserved starting the 20th whom we were planning to stay with for a few weeks. Luck found it’s way to us afterall, despite what I’m told is the worst February weather Font has seen in years.

At the moment we are living it up in a three bedroom gite, enjoying the hot showers, and warm beds. After day three in Font it feels like we’ve been here for three weeks. Everything is a blur and we haven’t even pulled onto any rock yet. Here’s hoping for clear skies and above freezing temperatures.