After the high volume of low grade climbing from the day before I was ready to try my hands at some of the harder stuff. The night before I put together a list of 6a through 6c climbs I'd like to try at Franchard Isatis, which by the way I only got on a single one. Instead I mostly just let my ADD take me where ever I saw a fun looking route, and at this place that's all over! I'm like a cat with a laser pointer in these forests. I jump from climb to climb as soon as a new one enters my peripheral.
After warming up on the first several blue circuit climbs I saw a Bleausard (a local Font climber) waltz up an amazing looking prow with perfect technique. When he got off he started explaining his beta (in French) to another climber nearby. I picked up enough to give it a try. The climb is called Le Statique 6b. It follows a severely overhanging line with a throw to a jug hold, however the crux is pressing off the jug to find a hidden sloper to mantle up on. It took me a couple tries to figure out where the hidden hold was, but on my third I managed to pull over the top.
The rock texture here is pretty cool. Its very similar to the beach sandstone in California like what we have at Corona del Mar, only not soaking with sea water. The hold morphology is very similar and the texture is almost the same with less grit. It forms into an amazing variety of holds from crimpers to chicken head jugs to tuffas. The only negative I would say would be the tendency to polish with high traffic. Also, I understand that moisture can make the friction something horrible, but we haven't experienced much of that yet.
After Le Statique I was ready to move on to another cluster of boulders. We found some red circuit climbs that we worked for a bit, and I got on Red #31 which was a somewhat high (for me) 5b. I gave it a couple tries and figured out some good beta, and then after lunch got back on and fired it right off. The finish was a little spooky, but I managed to pull it together and make it up.
Rachel got up a Red #48 4a on her 3rd try. And repeated it right after just to get the mantle smoother. This one started left hand on an arête and the right and on a sloper side pull. The left hand dead points up the arête and then you toe hook the left foot to shoot for another right side pull. After that you finish on right nice big buckets at the top. Really fun!
At the end of the day I found one of the routes on my list: a 6a called Luna that looked like a one move wonder. That turned out to be the case. I sat down and fired it on my first try. It was really just one steep move off decent crimps to a positive sloper and then an easy mantle. I've definitely done harder 4a's here, but I'll take it!
I tried a few 7a's and a couple 7b's but didn't have much luck. I wish I had more time here to project harder routes, but I'm having a blast doing the stuff I've done so far.
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