Fontainebleau Part Deux

 Well we've been steadily chipping away at the areas here in Fontainebleau. It's incredible that we've climbed at a different area every day for the last 2 weeks and we still haven't made it to some major areas. We've been climbing 2 days on 1 day off, but after 10 days of that we've started feeling some aches and pains so we're backing off a bit.

Concept 7a



the castle and river 200 yards from our camp.

We moved camp from La Musardiere to Les Pres because Les Pres was half the price. It's also within walking distance of a great little town on a river that has a 900 year old castle! Plus there's a little bakery with great fresh baguettes and pastries.

Baguette

We've made it to the Bas Cuvier area where we climbed with some brits that were quite a lot of fun (both of their names were Tom) and had a great day. It's excellent to get more spotters and just the comraderie of bouldering is better with more people. We tried la Marie Rose, which has to be one of the most frustrating problems ever. Very balancy and technical (Cassie's style-she came close) and is rated a Font 6a (easy V3, yeah right!), it's incredible that it was climbed something like 60 years ago. We both gave up on it, but vowed to come back. I tried La Joker (7a) and got completely humbled. Cassie sent Le Trou Simon (6a) and we all tried to get on the send train but got spanked. After that I did a sweet double dyno that I can't even find in the book, but watched some other guys try it. It's an all points off dyno from an undercling to two slopers. Sick!!!

Double Dyno 6c?

We went to Francard Isatis and checked out the blue circuit as well as some red climbs. The rock was excellent and we had a good day. One really really good problem was Le Surplomb Statique (6a+) which was an incredible climb. Great movement and fun. According to the font grades it's only a hard V3!!!! Everything here feels much harder than the grades they give it.

Le Surplomb Statique (6a+)

Slopers anyone?

On Sunday we tried to go to Versailles. We had everything packed, woke up early and drove straight to the train station. We made it to the palace at about 11am, and were shocked to see that the line was like a mile long. I'm not kidding, we looked and thought we were seeing 3 separate lines and then realized it was one long twisting snake of a line. We opted to keep our tickets till December and go back just before we leave for the US. We figured we would have been waiting in line for at least two hours. I suppose that's what you get going to the most popular tourist attraction in the country. So, we walked around the Luxemberg gardens, checked out the Pantheon, walked through the Latin Quarter and went to the monument to the Bastille. We had a great day just walking around Paris. It's a city that is meant for walking and riding bikes. Everything is much more friendly than NYC or other US cities. it's a place that you can stroll for hours without getting bored.

 





  Yesterday we checked out Apremont. It was a cool area, though stuff was pretty high and with only one pad and spotter it was a bit stiff for us. The temps lately have been very hot for good bouldering at around 80 degrees and it isn't expected to cool off until next Tuesday (which was about when we were planning to leave). We'll see if that happens as we're hoping to start making projects out of the hard problems and see what we can send. 80 is way too hot, next Wednesday they're saying 63. That's much better.

the USA - in France...