Fontainebleau Diary 2017 - Day 2

Day 2 saw us head to Apremont, targeting the area known to Jingo Wobbly as Apremont Chaos but in Bleau.info it is listed as Apremont Est. Chaos is an appropriate name, as we ended up parking at the wrong car park and taking a while to find the boulders we were looking for - but at least we didn't have the problem which we hit last year and again little bit last year where the circuits have been renumbered since our guide books were written.

We started out on the Green Circuit which dates back to 1952 and is an alpine circuit, designed so you can climb the problems in order and link them all together without touching the ground.  Nowadays this is a relatively unusual approach (though still found around Fontainebleau) but it has it's roots in the history of bouldering as a training exercise for mountain climbers, hence the term alpine circuit.  After the first few problems though this was not doing it for me, I suspect that it is wisest to follow such a circuit in a smaller group so there is less queuing. I took the opportunity instead to doze on a rock in the sun for a bit while the others followed it further.

Depart of the white circuit. Elsewhere painting on rocks would be frowned upon, but it's part of the history and tradition of Fontainebleau and most routes and problems are numbered.

Before long we found a small sandy clearing and began working La Bosse which took a few attempts but soon went with a bit of beta from Ed.

La Bosse

I'd already scoped out another problem from the Salmon Circuit which I wanted to try, however I was beginning to bottle it.  After a few other people tried it I got it on the second attempt and it felt really good.

By now Ed, Kelly, Kelly and Andy were trying Hyper Plomb, I didn't even bother as it appeared to be somewhat beyond me.  Instead I wandered around the nearby boulders and found Le Couteau which looked tasty, and with Liz to spot me I really surprised myself by flashing it onsight in a calm and controlled static fashion.

With that it was time for lunch, afterwards we were heading for the classic problem of La John Gill which involved a fair amount of getting lost and squeezing through boulders, at one point ending up on top of a rocky plateau at the summit which was rather stunning.

There were some concerted efforts on this problem from others in the group, I wasn't feeling it (common theme) so went to find some other things to try - there was a nice blue which I got most of the way up but the top was so dirty I couldn't finish it, so sat around watching others instead.  Then it was back to gite for wine and Jambalaya.  Tomorrow I believe the plan is to split in to two groups with one going to Bas Cuvier for classic problems like La Marie-Rose and another heading to Rocher du Potala to get a number of lower grades problems in; I am planning on being in the latter group as I haven't got the head for sessioning right now.

Ed attempting La John Gill