As some of you already know, we are taking our yearly vacation in Fontainebleau in France. We are a group of friends who always go to the climbing gyms of Vienna to try boulder problems.
Bouldering is a style of climbing where you don’t need to tie into a harness to protect yourself since the problems are not high so you can jump on a crashpad in case you have to come down.
Bouldering was born in the forest of Fontainebleau which is located only 50 minutes from Paris. There is thousands of boulders in a big area. These stones have over 5000 boulder problems, so everyone can find something there to climb, no matter if you are an absolute beginner or a full on pro climber.
Yesterday we spent our day in the area of Canche aux Merciers which is the most beginner friendly area. Our group of 8 friend quickly spread out to try on different boulders.
There is a phenomenon called the bleau slap. This is basically the difference between climbing in a gym or in the nature. The rocks are mostly the same height like the artificial ones in the gym, but mentally it is much more challenging to top these boulders. The round features of the sand stone make it hard to mantle, which is the last move of every boulder outside. You have to lean over the ledge and try to get tour leg up so you can top out and stand on top of the rock.
The slap refers to the grades as well, the grades are shown in the fontainebleau scale which goes from grade 2a which is an easy climb which you basically just can walk up to 8c+ being a very hard problem where you need extraordinary strength and technique to tackle the boulder.
On the photo above taken by my wife I am climbing a boulder in the 5th grade. This grade is normally a problem I do use for warm up in the gym but here in the woods it is a hard for me as if I would try a 6b+ or even 6c indoors.
We took a bunch of snacks with us and had an amazing day in the Fontainebleau woods. Even if you are not a climber you can still go for easy parkour routes that involve mid height rocks where you can jump and walk from one to the other. The wildlife is amazing there is a lot of lizards and geckos hunting for insects on the stones and they are much better climbers than us humans.
You can also just take a hammock and chill in the shade in between the trees and have a good read or take a nap.
You can also walk around bare feet which I tend to do a lot. Be careful not to kick the roots of the trees or you end up hurting your toes as I did. Excuse the gory image but I have to document this.
This is I think the most common injury in these woods since I hurt my toe 3 years in a row now so every time we come to Fontainebleau.
I hope you enjoy these small bits of our forest adventure. See you next time. Probably it will be the last day without rain so we gonna go early today if I can get the hung over brigade to join me.
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C ya
Cheers
Solymi