After Switzerland we headed back to Fontainebleau to meet some friends for New Years. Unfortunately during their stay and for a while after there was a lot of enforced rest and a lot of traipsing around looking at wet rock. Toward the middle of January though the weather started to pick up.
By this time however my psyche had taken a dive. Usually I'm happy to jump on something hard and battle away to victory, or more often than not, defeat. And then get up the next day and do it all again. Before we had arrived in font I was really keen to put in a lot of effort on The Island, (top of my life long tick list). Somehow though I only managed a few sessions. They weren't even bad sessions, if anything they were quite encouraging faring better than I had expected to, but I think on a long trip where all you have is climbing it can wear down your tenacity when it comes to trying things at your limit (or out of your reach).
I decided to do a couple of things to battle with the low psyche. First off I decided to give up smoking. I really like smoking but giving it up has been on my to-do list for a long time now. I always struggle when trying to quit because I crave it the most when I climb-weird. Secondly I decided to step it down a notch and do lots of sevens and just dip in out of the eights. In hindsight this is probably the decision I could have made. Fontainebleau is unique in that some of the best problems aren't necessarily the hardest ones. In Switzerland it seems that the quality of
the climbing and the line improves with the grade and to a certai
n extent in the peak district and in Wales too. In Font however there are quality problems of every grade and a lot of the sevens are really beautiful climbing.
At first I must admit I was pretty embarrassed by my footwork on the more vertical problems. Part of the reason was due to my planning to only climb steep stuff and bringing only tight down turned shoes but a big part was that I had forgotten how to move efficiently in that plane of motion.
For the next 7 weeks or so we went out and I climbed things I wouldn’t normally try. My girlfriend roped me into trying crimpy problems, balancy technical problems, high-ball problems, even a slab or two. Basically everything I was rubbish at I got on at some point and surprisingly I really enjoyed them. Not only that but the way I moved on the rock improved steadily throughout the rest of the trip. Usually I feel like I'm fighting the rock, trying to climb the problem in my style of climbing rather than moving with the rock. By the end of the trip I still
hadn’t quite reached the mythical moving with the rock state Mina seems to achieve, in fact it took me half an our to do a 5+ trying to emulate her style, but I was definitely on my way. Occasionally I was let down by skin strength which resulted in some good old fashioned sulking but the vast majority of stuff I tried I got up.
There is one little thorn of contention though. Total Eclipse (V12) at cul de chien. It too is on my life long tick list and being particularly rubbish at toe hooks I never thought it would be possible for me to do eclipse. Turns out I’m not as shabby as thought however (maybe the toes on the
instincts helped a bit here). I did Eclipse and L'Integrale Autre Toit, the sit down to Arrabesque (V11) fairly early on in Font and on my second session on the link of TE was failing on the penultimate move. This too for me was a massive surprise because before then I hadn't really thought I could do it. After that though I visited the roof a number of times and couldn't quite pull it out the bag. Either my core would be too tired or I would be too stupid to link the moves, somehow flailing myself off the rock on moves that I had previously found easy, to roll around in sand and have the obligatory paddy (when no one was around of course! There's something really nice about being able to indulge yourself and throw a really childish tantrum just because you fall of a piece of rock).
During this time my girlfriend Mina decided to start crushing. The weather improved for the last few weeks ( the best I’ve ever seen it in Font) and everything she touched went down pretty much. Very impressive to watch. Having only a few weeks left and having had such bad weather all trip I decided that the best option would be too climb every day until we left just in case the weather crapped out. So tenth day on with two split tips (from getting shut on Paddy grrr) I was taped up and back at the roof. There was a good scene there with lots of enthusiastic Frenchies, many who we had met before, all throwing themselves with vigor at everything.
I warmed up by retro flashing nouvel vague (V9) and then 4 goes later I had somehow managed to bumble my way from the sit to the end to get the pumpy little V11 tick. The frenchies and Mina also had a good sending spree with multiple ascents of nouvel vague which was good to see. I decided to try my luck at Total again. I was pretty tired but hoping that today would be one of those magical days. I pulled on, through the big moves at the start, into the tricky hand flick, out onto the face of the rock feeling tired by digging deep. Unfortunately it was to be a case of man down. Down, in the sound on my back. I had quite a few more goes each slightly worse than the last. Still, its a cool problem and one that feels different when fresh so I’ll be glad to go back to it.
The next couple of days were as blue and crisp as the ten before them. I tried Paddy again. A problem that looks like its slopey compression but is in fact about boning down on dirty holds. Still its beautiful and Mina and Mickey had made it look easy while I’d split two tips so I got back on it. And again split my tips. Doh! The next day we were at rocher cannon and I managed to bust out another couple of V10's. One in about 5 minutes which is pretty good for me. It was a nice short compressiony problem that I could get up close and personal with though.
Back into the van and back home. A great trip with lots of rest (except for the last 4 weeks) I've come away minus the overly ambitious ticks I had hoped for but climbing like a proper climber rather than a thug. Back to training for the next trip. Hopefully I can improve on my new found lung capacity and technique for Hueco this winter. Big thanks to Scarpa and OR for their support.
