"the dogs bollocks": fontainebleau

Showing posts with label fontainebleau. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Font Images

Famous texture of Fontainebleau.

Kikka moving pads around. Erosion is a big problem in Font. Even the wind and rain eats the rock quite quickly. You can see that the arrow and 20 are about 1mm higher than the non painted surface.

Stefan Pettersson close on Fata Morgan. One of the very few climbing pictures that I took...

Cul de Chien.

Doris.

Andy and Lara.

Pihla having a nap.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

"Choose Fontainebleau. Choose bad weather and slow drying rock. Choose polished, pof blackened holds. Choose trashed problems and grotesque chipping. Choose crags overcrowded with greasy handed weekender Parisiens and legions of ubiquitous Yanks. Choose grumpy old locals chastising everyone (except the French, that is) for using chalk. Choose unsafe car parks (just like at home) and obscenely expensive, yet utterly lifeless bars. Choose Calvaire, that slimy hole in the ground o a wet weekend day with 20 or 30 other people huddled beneath it's partial cover, wondering what the hell you are doing so far from home yet so far from paradise..." - Simon Panton, Bouldering Scene, Climber may 2002.

Still we chose to choose it. We absolutely love it there. We have so many good friends out there. Every time it feels like coming home (in a good way)... I don't think much of that text is true. Only once have we been told of for using chalk and I think they where weekend Parisians. Francois ( THE local hero) got quite pissed of about us getting told of. One of the 'Bleausards' actually said to me that 'pof is shit' when I was about to smack it on a foothold!

Last time and last boulder that I've climbed in Font was when I topped out 'Big Dragon'. After that it kinda felt that I'd had enough of Font for a while. After visiting Swiss/ Italy / Austria four times in a row we felt that maybe it's time to go back to cradle of movement. It's not like the climbing can get any better than in Font, but it's maybe not that important any more as seeing your friends first time for a long while.

Any how, here is a short video of our trip to Font. I was supposed to do a lot of filming, but I got lazy and didn't do much of that. Climbing is too much fun to be bothered with camera.

Thanks to all friends (old and new) for such a nice holiday! Hope to see you all in not so distant future!

Friday, February 27, 2009

Iban G.

Think it was 2000 or 2001 when we met this strong as a bull Basque climber. He was here in Jyväskylä doing some kind of a job training to become a certified electrician. If I remember correctly all they let Iban do here was some garden work. Closest he got to actual electricity work was changing light bulbs... There is some pictures in Iban's blog from his time here.

On one of the pictures we are gluing Forte's jug back on. Well actually Juha is. I'm on top of the rock... It's a shame that the hold came of in a first place. It was a very special climb. Now that the hold has come of again it's maybe a bit harder but not so nice to climb. It actually stirred quite a conversation at slouppi if it was OK to reinforce or glue holds back. I still don't know the answer. Maybe in some cases it's OK, but in Forte's probably not since it goes without.

La Rhume Folle from Marko Kauko on Vimeo.

A short video of the man himself in Fontainebleau, Bas Cuvier. Don't remember the year anymore. Maybe 2002? Good old days!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

From the archives 1

These pictures are from Samppa's arranged gathering to Font. There was a big posse of Finn's and two Brits in our ridiculously cold and expensive gite (one with a tennis court).

Unfortunately I don't have any really old pictures digitized yet.

Our captain of the trip Samppa.

Juha Saatsi wearing his color of power. In his case blue. 'La Baleine' Petit Bois.

Tim Clifford working with 'Big Dragon' in Petit Bois. Think the problem was named after a certain shop in Switzerland... Tim sent the problem later that spring.