Day 143 - Fontainebleau

big boulder

This big boulder is a souvenir of one of last year's Great Climbing Adventures:

Fontainebleau!

40 miles south of Paris is a large forest.  By tradition, this was the boar riddled hunting ground for the King, one of whose country Chateaux was the Palais de Fontainebleau.

Consequently, the forest (somewhere in the region of 110 square miles) has remained largely undeveloped by human activity.  

The forest has a sandy (rather than the more usual muddy) floor, and parts of it are like being on the beach.   Evidence of wild boar is everywhere, although sightings are rare and fleeting.  Majestic trees cover the valley, ridges and hills, with an ever-changing, yet endlessly beautiful flavour and atmosphere.

Strewn amongst the trees are thousands of boulders (much like the one above), composed of a hard sandstone...not entirely dissimilar to Peak District gritstone...although not quite the same either.

It's a magical place.

Early last century, pioneering French mountaineers began to hone their climbing skills, off season, by climbing on the boulders at Fontainebleau.   

Over the years, thousands of so called problems (a challenge to climb a particular route up a boulder) have been created, with many of them grouped in circuits.   These are groups of climbs of a similar grade, in a relatively compact geographical area.

From humble beginnings, bouldering has become a popular and significant climbing discipline, and Font is a bouldering Mecca for boulderers the world over.

Interestingly (or not), whilst English speakers tend to call the place Font, the French refer to it as Bleau (pronounced Blow) and local aficionados of bouldering are known as Bleausards.

I'm not sure you needed to know that, but there you are.

Anyway, we had a fantastic six days wandering the forest and climbing on boulders, last Autumn, and I expect we'll go again every year for, like, ever. 

Here's a video overview of our first ever day in Font:




I'm going for brevity in my blogging this week, so I'll simply finish up by confessing that I lied about the huge boulder above.    It is indeed a lump of Fontainebleau sandstone, retrieved from a boulder field in la forêt. 

I just exaggerated the scale a tad...

baby boulder

Toodle pip!

B-)