The Fat Lady Has Sung

Yep the fat lady has sung her heart out, has packed up and is heading home for supper. What am I talking about? Well thats the end pretty much of another spanking in Magic Wood. I had a rest day Thursday and the split tip looked slightly better Friday PM so headed out again. Warmed up with loads of tape on and felt ok'ish. Up to Sofa Surfer, two goes and the tip has split again with tape on! Game over for Friday.

Today decided to sack Sofa Surfer off as although I feel I can do it its not going to happen with the current gammy finger tip and I actually fancied doing some climbing before I leave this place. Some may say well you have over a month left in Europe so just stay longer, get your finger better and have another pop but the weather window is well and truly closing out as of tomorrow evening. Heavy snow is forecast for Monday to Wednesday in the Alps and if I did ride that out id only experience all the damp issues again like the start of this week, so ive got to call time on this one. Jack's Broken Heart, Sofa Surfer the list of what id really like to climb in Magic Wood is not long but what I do leave behind unfinished does cut a bit.

Anyway so with taped up finger I headed out today trying to get some decent mileage in and climb some of the more obscure problems here. The problem you have with granite is most stuff is a crimp, and typically quite a sharp crimp here in Magic Wood, so actually finding stuff to climb that didn't mean id leave trails of blood on the holds was quite tough. First up I hiked right up to the top of the crag and flashed some 7b called Fleisch something, then I got spanked on some 6c highball wall climbs that took me an hour to work out. Then some local guys pointed me at a 7c+ called Diesel Power, an aesthetic overhanging prow, that had no crimps on it at all.

Went to work on this, it was a little wet, so usual drying tactics first off. A few goes and id realised instead of pinching this obvious hold on the arete you could twist your wrist round and kind of undercut it meaning it was a jug. Once that beta kicked in I was up top and mantling out. 7c+ my way no way, its probably more soft 7c or 7b+ even. Still a good problem and I guess most of the grades on the well established problems at Magic Wood have settled down to what is right but the more obscure ones are bound to need some more input.

From here the helpful locals next pointed me at Kalorienmonster. This thing is a monster. Its a slopey, heel hook shuffling, traverse thing. Again no crimps so I had to give it a go but by now it was 3pm and by that time here the sun has dipped below the ridges and the dreaded damp kicks in big style. After slipping off numerous slopers on the route I decided it was not going to happen today but I have a sequence now so unless my finger recovers miraculously overnight and I can crimp again ill come back for this in the AM.

So a short session tomorrow and then we leave pre the snowstorm to go back to Fontainebleau. The forecast looks pretty bleak, lots of rain around, but at least it may be cooling down a bit and I can try and get out in between the showers. Plus Neil H is based in Font and im really looking forward to climbing with him again after spending most of this week mooching around on my own.