Trick Problems, Microbeta, and Glass Footholds

And back in time again...

Friday, September 12, 2008

Miraculously, Nick's tent stayed dry despite the fairly steady rain all night. I kept squishing away from the sides as much as possible, since I was convinced I was going to be drenched, but I was totally fine. However, although it had stopped raining by the time we got up, the boulders were obviously going to be less fine. So, Nick and I decided that first we would go to the supermarket to get food, and then go to the Château for a while in the morning waiting for the rock to dry.

The supermarket was relatively uneventful, but when we got out with our breakfast (pain au chocolat and croissants) I discovered that Nick had managed to get "Jus avec pulpe." I wasn't too impressed -- I don't like pulpy orange juice. However, later in the trip I decided that it could be worse when I was in a grocery store in France and I saw juice that was simply "pulpissimo."

At the Château, we decided not to go inside (or at least to any part of the inside that required a ticket), since the tickets were 7 or 8 euros each. Instead, we happily wandered the grounds and took about a zillion pictures. When my camera finally ran out of batteries (as it had been threatening to do for ages), I just took Nick's and kept taking photos. Here are a few, but I suspect many more will end up on FB.

Eventually, though, things started to dry up, and Nick guided me back towards the climbing. We had lunch quickly at the campsite first, and then we headed off toward Cul de Chien. We did some climbing there, but I got particularly frustrated when my foot slipped off a particularly poffed foothold unexpectedly, making me whack my elbow. And it bled! And so there were tears. Half because my elbow hurt and half because it always scares me when I fall off something completely unexpectedly, since that actually hardly ever happens to me. There may have been some "This is exactly why I hate Fontainebleau!"s. So Nick calmed me down and we did mostly Blue Circuit problems for a couple hours.

From there, we headed over to 91.1, which was a very nearby area, to try Flipper, a 6a (V3) arete. Nick has done it once in the past, and I think I have tried it in the past as well (but unsuccessfully). Neither of us sent this time, but Nick did better than I did -- it's pretty powerful (a lot of arete hugging), and also you have to do a knee scum that was scraping my knee through my pants, since my pants were pretty thin. Ow ow ow.

After that, though, things were pretty uneventful. We headed back to the campsite and ate dinner. Nick cooked while I helpfully took photos. We discussed our drive to Orpierre the next day, as planned.