Friday glee wants to be a Bleausard

[rydra_wong]

The Friday post of glee is where you get to tell us about your climbing-related happiness this week. It can be a new achievement or adventure, or just that you climbed and had fun.

To enhance this week's glee, and because of where I went last weekend -- FONTSPAM!!!

The forest of Fontainebleau is probably the largest and best-developed bouldering areas in the world. It has everything from circuits aimed at small children to some of the hardest bouldering problems in the world.

Oh, and it's very, very beautiful.

Info:

UK Climbing: Fontainebleau
Planet Fear: Fontainebleau -- What Is It?
Bleau.info
The BoulderBus

Vids:

Font June 2010 by Jack Smith-Keegin -- I believe this is a group from his university climbing club at play
Fifty Days in Font
Tyler Landman on Khéops (8B)
Dorothea Karalus on Les Beaux Quartiers (8A)

Comments

[wpadmirer]

What an incredible place!

Well, my glee for this week was my first ever successful heel-hook move. I was climbing a hard 5.8 route, and I knew that was the move I had to make, and by God, I made it. I've attempted heel-hooks before, but have never managed to make one work. So I was very, very pleased and excited.

I finished the route (not without some falls which included a lot of swinging and swearing which I'm rather famous for in my gym), and felt very good about it!

[rydra_wong]

What an incredible place!

It's absurdly huge. There are literally thousands and thousands of perfectly bouldering-sized boulders scattered through the forest. And so there's ridiculous amounts of stuff at every level; you just find out what colour circuit suits you, and you can spend a happy day following the dots (all the problems in a circuit in a given area are marked by coloured arrows and numbers, with coloured dots pointing you from one problem to the next).

Well, my glee for this week was my first ever successful heel-hook move.

OMG yay! Heel-hooks always make me feel so cool when I can make them work.

[emperor]

I was going to bounce about going climbing outside tomorrow, but the forecast looks like that's not going to happen. Oh well...

Last Saturday, though, a friend and I had a monster 3.5-hour session at the wall, and I climbed my first f6b+, at the first attempt! I think corner routes must suit me or something ;-)

[rydra_wong]

Rock on! 3.5 hours is epic.

[emperor]

Our attempts to climb a 4+ at the end of that session were ... comic. I whined my way to the top complaining I couldn't hold on to the massive jugs! Good times :)

[rydra_wong]

Hee! But I think I may be able to top that; after a day and a half in Font, my co-ordination vanished so completely that I leaned casually against a boulder and fell to the ground. There were witnesses.

[emperor]

Oopsie!

[emperor]

I trust you had a suitably awesome time at Font?

[rydra_wong]

The incoherent babbling and spamming should be a clue. *g*

I'm still completely exhausted, but it's an amazing place.