isnd: Another Five Days

This past week has brought us light rain, but otherwise perfect temperatures and clean rock. A really brief update on what we've been up to:

04.04
We took advantage of the last few days of dry and windy weather and went to some of the slower-drying areas. Today with hit Franchard Cuisiniére. It was a tiny bit warm for the more marginal problems, but it's hard not to have a good time at Cuisiniére.

beetlejuice

04.05
Sticking to the Franchards, we went to Isatis today.

Rognures d'Ongles

Buerre Marga

04.06
The rain and sleet returned today with a vengeance, but with cold precipitation comes a cold front, which would bring nice crisp temperatures in the following days. It was time for a rest day anyways, so we hiked around in the rain in the "Roche du Paradis" and Mont Sarrasin areas near Puisilet. Sarrasin has a black circuit which consists of huge, scary, highball problems with bad landings. It would be a toprope circuit, if there was such a thing. Paradis, on the other hand, seemed more reasonable. Still large boulders by Fontainebleau standards -- more like Yosemite-sized boulders. Beautiful lines there and some potential for some new problems. It also happened that the French national bouldering championships were happening this weekend, so we stopped by Avon to watch a bit of the finals. Quite interesting to experience a French bouldering competition, and to notice the differences -- one of the most obvious was the sound made by a few hundred people yelling 'Allez!' over and over.

Roche du Paradis

women's finals

04.07
Paul arrived today, so we took him to everyone's favorite introduction to Fontainebleau area -- Sabot. After a day of climbing there, we headed up to Cuvier Rempart so I could try Baisers Volés again. That problem has an evil top-out, which got the best of me once again, but I have a new footwork plan for the next time I get on it.