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+
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.
We departed Tuesday at 6PM. Flight included a few bad movies but no sleep for either of us. We landed in Paris, picked up the car and the snow began to fall. We headed into the city to pick up a few climbing supplies. It was a lot of fun learning the french way of driving which involves making your own lanes and never stopping. The pedestrians don’t make it easy on you as they are always leaning out onto the road appearing as if they are about to start walking across at any moment.
It stopped snowing as we left Paris and headed down the road to Fontainebleau. The ground was wet when we arrived so we drove into town to see what it had to offer. Fontainebleau is much bigger than I expected with tall buildings and many locals wandering the streets at all hours. We stopped to eat our second ham sandwich of the trip which was both cheap and delicious. When we exited the restaurant it was snowing. By the time we arrived at the car it was a full on blizzard with heavy winds. What should have been a 25 minute jaunt home through the forest turned into an hour and a half adventure helping a dozen other people push their cars up an icy road. Did I mention home for our first night in Fontainebleau was a tent?
Two of the best at Horse Pens. Video by Matt Hanner and John Hur.
http://www.vimeo.com/9362357
