Tag: Fontainebleau

Rock climbing

Bouldering in Fontainebleau with a Toddler

The woods around Fontainebleau have a reputation as one of the best places in the world to boulder. Thousands of sandstone boulders, with tens of thousands of boulder problems, scattered about a pretty forest that covers some 300 square kilometres. Fontainebleau also has a reputation as being a great place to take kids. That’s a reputation that my wife and I have found to be deserved on our trips over the last few years. Continue reading Bouldering in Fontainebleau with a Toddler

the Severe climber12 Comments
Rock climbing

Back in the Woods – Bouldering in Fontainebleau

I love bouldering at Fontainebleau.  There are so many wonderful things about it.  All those boulders scattered through a pretty wood.  A stunning amount of climbing, in a wide variety of forms and often on boulders that weird, beautiful or both.   The different characters of the climbing areas.  The feeling of community among the climbers.   The inland beaches that make for good landings and nice … Continue reading Back in the Woods – Bouldering in Fontainebleau

the Severe climber6 Comments
Rock climbing

Mostly Yellow in Fontainebleau

If it were not for bad customer service, I wouldn’t have been bouldering at Fontainebleau this week. On my first trip to Fontainebleau a year ago I tore the meniscus in my right knee while pulling hard on a heel hook. Since surgery on the knee, I’ve been trying to get back into climbing in a way that is slow, gentle and careful enough to avoid injury. Bouldering outside on boulders that often have sloping holds and rounded top-outs wasn’t necessarily what I would have picked as my reintroduction to climbing on real rock. Continue reading Mostly Yellow in Fontainebleau

the Severe climber9 Comments
Rock climbing

One Year On

I was unlucky, uninformed and an idiot. It was near the end of our second day of my first bouldering trip to Fontainebleau and I was with a group climbing just a few more problems before it got too dark and late. Some of the group had climbed this tricky problem up the flat front of a split boulder and I wanted to do it too. It was different, a challenge and looked fun. This was partly because completing the problem required a right heel hook and I don’t do heel hooks often. Continue reading One Year On

the Severe climber22 Comments
Rock climbing

Fontainebaby

An Easter break to the woods of Fontainebleau to climb on its famous sandstone boulders was our first real test as rock climbing parents. We had been taking our baby son, Leo, to the climbing wall on a regular basis and to some artificial boulders not far from where we live in London. He’d enjoyed the trips and we had managed to get a good amount of climbing done. But several days of outdoors climbing in a foreign country, with a teething seven-month old baby, felt like more of a challenge. Continue reading Fontainebaby

the Severe climber2 Comments