Nick and Deb arrived early on Sunday morning. They’d done the long drive overnight but still, after a quick power nap in the van they were psyched to get out and get crushing.
We headed up to Apremont to meet Lance and Lou, who are also out for the week and had arrived the previous evening.
I’d been eyeing up ‘Retablissement’ a few days earlier as it looked right up my street – good holds up to a rock-over move to a small rail and a slopey top-out.
I got up it pretty quickly, but made a right meal of the top out. Luckily when I repeated it for the camera I managed it with a bit more grace!
Nick, Deb and Lance made quick work of it too and Lou put in a good effort but couldn’t quite reach the rail, so we moved on.
After stopping at a problem Lance and Lou had been working before we arrived, ‘La Lune’ which Nick and Lance despatched quite quickly (a long move put the rest of us off, so we left that one to the lanky lads), we hunted down ‘Onde de Choc’, another problem I had spotted on my recce the other day. I turned out to be just as good a problem as it looked. We spent a while working out the crux sequence and pretty soon Nick fired it off in style. I was making pretty good progress but was tiring quickly and was wary of my thin skin, so after coming close to sticking the crux move I decided to return another day, when my skin was better and I was feeling fresher. I’m hopeful that I can get this done while i’m out here though, it’s certainly be a nice one to get ticked.

A change of scenery was called for, and Drei Zennen was the next port of call. It’s another crag i’ve wandered round in the wet, but never climbed at, and I remembered there being some good steep problems with decent holds, which we quickly found and set to work on.
I spent a while working a savage, pocketed overhang with Nick and Deb – ‘Diversion’
Nick got it done after a bit of (hard) work and Deb came really close – i’m sure she’ll be back at some point to polish it off.
I, on the other hand wasn’t enjoying greasing off the slightly damp feeling pockets and quickly threw in the towel. I wandered off and found a nice little wall climbed on small slopey crimps, but didn’t quite mange to top it out.
All feeling pretty tired by now, we surrendered to the need for food, beer and sleep and after arranging to meet up with Lance and Lou again in the morning we headed back to the gite.

On Monday morning, feeling refreshed after a good night’s sleep we set off to Mont Pivot. This is a small area on a hilltop near Rocher Sabots, with one bloc in particular providing a couple of highly rated routes. We only really tried the left-hand line – ‘Belle Gueule’ which climbed on small one and two finger pockets, and after I demonstrated that yes, unfortunately, the way forward was dependent on a long move move off a mono (which I hasten to add I didn’t fancy doing), Nick and Lance got it done with Deb following up on a different sequence of even worse looking holds, to get round the long final move. Lou gave it a good go and was making it up to the mono but decided to leave it to the others, who had turned their attention to the sit-start. Again, Debbie was forced to use the poorer holds but this didn’t stop her getting it sent, along with Nick and Lance, (Lance for his first Font 7b tick – good stuff!)
By now I’d been on a wander again to check out the problems at Rocher Oiseaux across the path, a few of which looked pretty good, so we moved on to give ‘em a crack.
First up was ‘Action Directe (assis)’, and after Lance and I had worked out a rough sequence, Nick proceeded to flash it and Deb made quick work of it too. After fiddling around with his sequence a bit (for once it wasn’t helping to be tall) Lance sussed and sent it, and once i’d broken through the Font-elbow pain barrier I finally grunted my way up it. We looked around at some of the other problems, but none really grabbed us, so with a couple of hours daylight left we went for a quick session at Rocher Sabots.
Debbie and Lou wanted a look at the two different variants on ‘le Jeu du toit’ and after watching for a minute I decided to have a crack at the left-hand one. It took a few goes to get the final tenuous rock-over sussed out, but once I was sure I could do it, I sat down at the start and fired it off.
While Deb continued to work the other variant, I went for a play on ‘L’Oblique’ with Lance and Lou. The final move is a big throw out to the sloping arête and although I was getting my tips just over it, I couldn’t quite get enough on to stick it.
Beaten by the fading light we were forced to call it a day.
Here’s a few clips of what we’ve been up to so far...



Needless to say, it’s been great to have some friends over here to session the boulders with. And equally great to see them make such a strong start to their trip. Also, despite the thin skin and an aching bicep, i’m feeling stronger than ever at the moment and with the renewed psyche that comes with having a few friends around brings, i’m sure there’s more to come.
Unfortunately though, after nearly two weeks with barely a cloud in the sky, i’m currently sitting in the gite listening to the sound of rain pattering on the windows. Fingers crossed it’s not here to stay, but i’ve got a few wet-weather possibilities saved up to try so we’ll be climbing something regardless of the weather.