Fontainebleau 2015

I enjoyed this trip so much that it was boosted right to the front of the blogging queue (sorry drafts). Bouldering! Outdoors! And the company was really really awesome :) Not everything was perfect (that's looking at you, weather), but it was such a great experience that all those grouses don't really matter anymore. I also think I did better than I ever expected of myself, so yea, I'm happy :)

Prelude
Down south from Paris lies a region called Fontainebleau, well-known as a bouldering haven. [For non-climbers, bouldering is a climbing discipline involving (relatively) short rocks i.e. boulders. No ropes/harnesses needed, just shoes, chalk, and crashpads for softer landing.]

It's just a hop over to France from London so this was the best ever time to go to not tear a hole in my bank account. It was a bit of a hassle to fit this trip in between all our clashing schedules for Easter, but we somewhat succeeded in the end. Even before the trip, the weather forecast told of clouds and rain. And true, when we landed in port Calais, the sky was simply, continuously, grey. It was grey throughout the half-day we spent in Paris, and at one point, the Eiffel Tower was shrouded in fog so thick that only the bottom half was visible. [Sadly, the fog cleared and I didn't manage to get a picture of that unconventional look.] After flitting around the main tourist attractions of Paris, it was off to Font in our rented car.

The view from my backseat. 2 crashpads in the boot and one more squashed in front of our knees.

The places
The boulders are located in forests dotted around Font, so having a car was important. We went to Bas Cuvier (1.5 days), Franchard Isatis, and L'Elephant in chronological order. The former two had the usual forest floor, covered in mushy leaves esp after rain, but L'Elephant was different. I'd read that some areas were sandy, but I wasn't expecting the boulders of L'Elephant to be surrounded by Sentosa-esque soft white sand. [When searching for crashpad rentals online, I found comments on how the sand provides a good soft landing. Please, no, you still need crashpads. Read on to find out why I think that way.] It rained intermittently for the first few days, but we got a decent amount of sun so it wasn't so bad.

Bas Cuvier (29th and 30th March). The crowds made it seem like an outdoor boulder gym.

Franchard Isatis (31st March).

L'Elephant (1st April). Really like Sentosa right?

L'Elephant is named as such because there is a boulder there that really looks like an elephant. A gigantic one! [We didn't get to climb this particular boulder, but I've been told it's v difficult to get down off it...]

L'Elephant itself. With a Denise for scale.

THE CLIMBS!!!
I didn't keep track of the routes we did, but it was mostly blue routes (orange for the first 1.5 days and some red). [Looking at the Font grading system on wiki] Blue is... not a v zai level, but the climbs were a sufficient challenge for us.

"I have always dreamed of coming to Font." (Lee, 2015)

Routes in Font are v footwork intensive. On many routes one is free to choose from a selection of footholds, if one can locate them. It's better to climb in a group so ppl can point out out-of-sight footholds, whether you're on or off the wall. Having to step on ~1mm scuffs is no joke man, same goes for those polished nubs. Sometimes, there really are no obvious footholds - what to do? Smear. You really have to trust and step well if not you'll just slip and get a nice scrape right down the leg. My big toes were red and raw at the end of those days coz of all those minuscule footholds. Also, I don't think I've ever done so much heel hooking in an equivalent space of time.

In general, I think my footwork was not bad, and it really helped me keep up. One route was particularly symbolic - a red route that we were trying on the 3rd climbing day. Although I didn't manage to finish, I was quite satisfied with the level I reached. The bottom half of the rock was full of like "inverted nail marks" which I managed to utilise with minimal scrabbling so as not to wear down my poor shoes. In the end, I was bested by a slopy left pinch. More finger training then.

This is not that route, but this was footwork training. Notice the shoes are not my own (coz we were blur in the morning and forgot to bring our communal plastic bag of shoes). So when we found out at the place we had to borrow spare shoes from Dong who was there with ICMC. We went back to retrieve our shoes in the afternoon xD

Throughout those days I met a really wide range of handholds - like a exhibition of what I learnt the first day I walked into the SRC gym. There were jugs that felt as good as those made of plastic, lots and lots of crimps, and even monos. All these on curved, flowing features that would seem right at home in some serene chinese garden. Near the end of the first full climbing day, my right middle finger got irritated after 4 hard tries (2 with the wrong beta >.<) on a route with a right crimp on the crux. From then on, I decided to maximise my climbing mana through self-preservation. This meant avoiding right crimps/monos, or at least not wasting attempts on routes. But handholds weren't really a big problem for blue routes, at least not until the top...

This photo was taken to point out one particular bump to be aiming for (coz it's not clear from below). NTU+NUS just grinned anyway hahaha.

Outdoors, there is no final hold. A route hasn't been sent until one is standing on top of the boulder. As I now know, that final struggle can be a pain as the tops are mostly just one huge sloper to mantel up upon. [Mantling is an actual skill.] Whatever small edges on the top face were awesome help in hauling body weight up and over. But most of the time, even those were non-existent so us unskilled people had to flop in the most unglam manner and wriggle until our centre of gravity crossed into the safe zone. à la beached whales. These moments would've been quite funny to watch if there wasn't a need to worry about my friends falling off. Of course, the boulders have varying heights, and the higher they are, the worse the consequences of falling.

The first route we did on the final climbing day is a v good example. It was meant as a warmup blue route and it looked decent from the ground: a little high, but with a large sloping ledge to step on along with what seemed like many jugs. Epitome of misjudgment.

This route.

The start wasn't that easy, nice handholds but no obvious footholds meant smearing up and perching on the ledge, and from there it just got scarier. Crawling up the ledge was fickle business. It turned out that there were not many nice things to hold, and the smooth ledge wasn't v promising either. All that time I was scared I would roll off the ledge and break smth... At a certain point, it became impossible to down-climb [in desperation, many things come to mind], or jump down [alr too high and it's not the top yet!], so the only way was up. It really felt like leading outdoors, having to pause to calm and steel myself and all that. When I got to the top I was really trembling, I think more so because of the fear than the effort, coz the route wasn't that difficult, just v scary. And I plastered myself to the rock for fear of toppling off the way I came. At least getting down the other side was easy.

With me for scale. Not daring to sit on the tip of the boulder for a photo after that ordeal.

Speaking of getting down, that can be annoying too. Some boulders have gently sloped faces on one side, so after climbing up the sheer side [lol, so apparently the essence of climbing is to make things difficult for ourselves], one can walk down the other way. On other boulders that are more rounded or cube-shaped, the usual way is to "butt" down the side gingerly, taking care not to slip and lurch headfirst off the rock.

My final climb in Font ended prematurely when I fell outside the crashpad, onto my back, and hit my head. The sand and my ponytail helped soften the blow and I'm just glad I wasn't far from the ground and nothing serious happened. The sequence in question involved a right heel hook at about waist-height before bumping the left hand to a higher hold. I missed the left hand catch and my right heel was hooked so beautifully that it was the last thing to fail. The hook wasn't particularly nice/deep and I was surprised it stuck so well. Aside from being surprised at my own footwork, I literally had some sense knocked into me. My spotter and I were so fixated on the next hold that we forgot I hadn't gotten there yet. Partly coz I'd attempted once before and got higher, so I never expected to fall like that. Anyways, SPOTTING IS IMPORTANT. If everyone looks out for each other we'll all be able to climb together safely :)

[It happens that my fall was captured on video. Even as I was rubbing away the headache, it looked so comical I might have laughed. But then, these things are only funny till smth bad happens. So to my friends who might be reading this, never underestimate the importance of spotting. At least the headache didn't stop me from watching Poh finish his 6c.]

Last few moments at L'Elephant.

Everything else
During our recent trip to Building One (another gym in London with cool dyno routes and more), I suddenly rmbed that I own a Canon Legria camcorder. I used to use it extensively (esp during the JC touch league), but after a while I kinda... forgot about it. So I made it a point to bring it along and use it on this trip, to immortalize awesome moments. It might be 5 years old but still it captures in HD (though it doesn't show on blogger) with satisfactory audio - pretty damn good. On hindsight, I was evidently not thinking enough and didn't borrow a tripod for it. It would have saved me the trouble of finding flat rocks to plant it on and using random stuff to prop it up. This and the cui battery life meant that I couldn't use it all the time too. Ah, but the things I've caught on video, all those funny things we did and said xD [I have since bought my own Gorillapod to go with it, and will be on the lookout for chances for use :)]

If there's any one general thing I've learnt from my exchange travels, it's that good company is the backbone of a great trip. [I consider myself quite lucky in this aspect.] This bunch (and the rest of the sg climbers here) is peculiarly like a mini UMC - people I'm comfortable climbing, talking cock, and having fun with. Friends, really. Same as back in NTU, a large part of why I climb is the people I get to spend time with.

I was the weakest member of the group (3 guys, an interwoman, and me). So I knew the worst that could happen would be them doing routes that I wouldn't be able to even start on. But I managed to keep up, doing the same routes that they did, and at times, doing better than some of the guys hahaha. In some routes, I struggled a bit with strength and took a few more attempts, but in others I had better footwork and was more stable. At least we all attempted the same routes (save for Poh) and I finished most of them. This is smth I'm really happy about :D

I'll miss this place. We climbed for about 3.5 consecutive days and that was pretty much the physical limit. Any more and I'd have been in too much pain (raw, scraped and aching) to want to climb, let alone climb well. I guess if we had gone for longer we'd have to factor in repair days. But it was not to be, at least for this time. The trip really flew by and in no time it was back to London and reality - proof of how much I enjoyed myself. And I dare say: best outdoor climbing trip I've been on so far.

And lastly... this.

Nuuuu a hole T.T

10 months ago, I was unable to fit my old pair into my luggage, so I don't have my designated outdoor shoes here with me :( On top of my regular gym climbs, this pair has braved the abrasiveness of natural rock 3 times to date and the left heel has become loose. They will turn 2 years old come August 24th (it's not difficult to trace back the date) and I've been v happy with them thus far.

How highly is my happiness valued? ;)