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Retour à Fontainebleau

Why go to Fontainebleau, you wonder? Then you haven’t read our first Fontainebleau post, which you should definitely do first! :)

It was our second time in Fontainebleau, so we kind of had an idea what awaited us. Our major objectives for this trip were:

This time we managed to take a picture of the canelés. Were they even better? Hard to say, in any case, they were incredibly delicious.

baguette retour Retour à Fontainebleau

Where we stayed

We rented an apartment in Bourron-Marlotte, which is located 15 min south of Fontainebleau by car. It was a tiny house to ourselves on an empty horse ranch - a lot of privacy therefore. The bouldering area “Restant du Long Rocher” was within walking distance. There also was an amazing bakery, unfortunately a little bit too far to walk there in the morning - at least for a person who’s grumpy without breakfast and coffee.

ranch horse Horse ranch

4/5 stars!

Where we climbed

This time around, we didn’t put any hope in the printed guides anymore. We worked our way through using 27crags and bleau.info. Some boulder areas were so stunning last time that we definitely had to come back, others still needed to be explored. And many more still need to be explored, a comeback to Fontainebleau is therefore guaranteed.

Restant du Long Rocher

In our experience it’s a quiet and less frequented area, however offering some hidden gems. For Fontainebleau conditions the fall zone often is rather bad and some boulders are pretty high. Starting off with some red circuit boulders, we soon realized that we wouldn’t try all the circuit boulders due to either height or a bad fall zone. Looking for a good try hard boulder, we found “Elixir de Bouldering”. It’s a beautiful sloper travers. Unfortunately, the last slopers and the exit were wet, making it impossible to project it. Definitely a boulder on the tick list for next spring.

elixir Still a project, can’t withhold this beauty however

When we returned, it was to find a 6b boulder problem for Lisa, which turned out to be an awkward sit start move called L’Arpenteur du Restant.

3/5 boulder brushes!

Aprement Ouest and Aprement Buttes aux Dames

Apprement Ouest is incredible. Paul continued crushing the red circuit. This time we also explored the adjacent area Aprement Buttes aux Dames and there are still many more areas to explore. This is definitely an all time favourite! There are beautiful lines of all grades. We found some beautiful lines for a decent last day of our holidays. The highlights were blocage tonique and la rampe, both 6a.

5/5 boulder brushes!

95.2

This area is named after its peak, which is 95.2 metres high and the highest hill in the area. It’s among others famous for the 7a boulder Retour aux sources, where Paul tried some moves, of course. The project will be continued in the future. To sum up our experience in 95.2: it was hot, 6a.

4/5 boulder brushes!

Rocher Canon

This area offers beautiful circuits as well as try hard projects, as there are many overhanging boulders. In contrast to most other boulder spots in Fontainebleau, this one can be reached by train. We went there on a sunny Saturday, little surprise that it was crowded. We might come back for further exploration.

3/5 boulder brushes!

Off days and non-climbing activities

Off days did not exist, we climbed eight days in a row - can not recommend, though. Crushing hard was not possible after so many hard attempts and days. Lesson learned for the next holiday.

Dinner in Paris

We went to Paris to meet a friend for dinner. Despite being close to Paris, going there was more of a challenge than anticipated. Paris introduced a rather large “lower emission zone”, which makes a spontaneous trip by car impossible, as you can get the batch online only. We therefore went to Massy by car and switched to the regional train there. Driving close to Paris admittedly in rush hour felt like a near death experience anyways, so taking the train was an amazing option - and cheap at the same time, just took some time and it was quite crowded. We headed to Aujourd’hui Demain, a vegan concept store and restaurant located in the 11th arrondissement, which is a modern and dynamic area of Paris.

paris1 paris2 Mac’n’Cheese and Quesadilla

Arkham horror

The horror returned to Arkham - this time in form of a card game. Trish Scarborough and William Yorick were stuck in Innsmouth fighting fish-like creatures.

Where to eat