This half term it was time to focus my attention to bouldering; having never been on a bouldering trip before I was really excited to see what they entail. The obvious choice was Fontainebleau and what a good choice it was! Every day we went to a new crag, and every day I was impressed by the climbing. The forests of Font are beautiful and everywhere you look is a boulder with chalk marks on it somewhere!
Some of the highlights of my trip were:
Photo and excessive editing by Tom Harry Wright!
Climbing the highball la dolle polly (the cheesegrater) Fb5C was amazing! It is an 8m boulder problem with massive pockets as holds everywhere- usually in lead climbing I am apprehensive about falling even though I am usually just above the bolt but on this I was fine for some reason! Apparently I climbed the problem like a route though, shaking out and chalking up every move.
Another highlight was watching Ellis do his hardest boulder grade to date- Fb8B! The determination and skill it took was inspiring to see:-)
I also climbed my hardest boulder problem to date with an ascent of ‘Golden Feet Gauche’ Fb7C+! This was a slabby problem on really bad feet, but with my Tenaya Oasi’s I really trust my feet even on polished rock now. The handholds on the problem were sparse but most of my weight was through my legs.
My final highlight is the day I tried ‘graviton’ Fb7A, this problem was awesome and although I didn’t get the tick I had great fun trying it. On the same day I also tried a funky 7C on an arête which was really crimpy but didn’t manage the tick. But the real highlight of that day was meeting Jan Hojer at Cul De Chien and watching him send some super hard problems!
Font was a great trip and a perfect destination. I would recommend it to any keen boulderers! Thanks for reading and thanks to Beta Climbing Designs for all the support!:-)
Charlotte Warner 