↡ Fontainebleau 2020 Bouldering Trip ↡

We spent the last few days of our trip in Fontainebleau climbing at Franchard Hautes Plaines and 91.1.

Hannah worked on Black Hole Sun, a 6c roof that has become a real nemesis. Last year she opened her account by working through the first half of the roof but her progress was halted by a real crunch move near the lip of the roof.

We knew that Hannah wanted to have another go at Black Hole Sun this trip, but it was impossible to know how the moves would feel. This time it was a lot colder. And this time Hannah was a lot stronger.

Then, the inevitable. Rain stops play. The clouds rolled in and we didn’t see the sun for two days. It showered, it drizzled and it poured.

We felt grateful for the sunny weather we’d already had. It was more than we expected we’d get in early January. But it’s only human nature to hope for more.

Two days and one indoor session later, we woke up on Saturday 4th February to clear blue skies. The only problem was that our ferry was booked for later that day.

We set our alarms early and had our pads out before the clock turned nine.

Most of 91.1 was already dry and I got stuck into Flipper 7a+. I repeated the standstart on my first go. Then, I did the sitstart in two halves. But it took hours to piece together the whole climb. I was getting way too pumped! It probably didn’t help that I was anxious to get the climb done before we left.

Once I’d ticked Flipper 7a+ I suddenly relaxed. We still had around an hour left at the crag, so I started throwing myself at Le Serpe d’Or. This is a short 7b line with two different methods. Naturally, I chose the most dynamic method.

I’d almost given up on La Serpe d’Or before we left. I felt fairly confident repeating the big dyno move, but I couldn’t find a way to match into the crimps. It was actually Jim who suggested the campus beta which involved placing a right foot that immediately slips off once you move onto the two crimps. From here, it’s just full power to throw for the top!

#Bouldering #Climbing

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