I’ve been back from France for a week now. It was an exceedingly productive trip in that I finished my research for Ceuse, Volx, Sisteron, and Orpierre. I got a few action shots to finish off some pages too. The flip-side of the trip was hardly doing any climbing! Walking up to Ceuse day after day is pretty rough, but when you’re not going to be climbing when you get there is pretty hard. I did get some routes done, and they were all incredible, but it would have been nice to have tried a lot more!  I was joined for the first couple of days by Belgian super star in the making Robin Poelmans. He’d onsighted 8b but couldn’t seem to get psyched for the 6cs and 7as I was doing, falling off them more that I might have expected. However a couple of days later he onsighted 8b+, which I was impressed by – a lot of people would have probably not have even got on an 8b+ after falling off 6c, which just goes to show that yesterday’s defeats are not today’s limitations.

Nicolas Le Baut climbing at Sisteron

The greatest frustration of the trip was not walking up to Ceuse and not climbing, though that came close, no the biggest pain was trying to work out the lines at Sisteron. The guidebook to the area is so bad that I really struggled to make sense of it. Only when cross-referencing the lines with Bill Birkett’s French Rock did it start to reveal itself.

Orpierre took about a week to re-photograph (I’d mistakenly taken the first photos in medium res – oops) and sort out the lines. I didn’t climb at all at Orpierre, which was a shame, but I wouldn’t have made a very good climbing partner as most of the time I was sorting out where various routes go. Fortunately Ian Fenton, who lives out in Orpierre much of the year is going to lend a hand to this section.

A rainbow at Ceuse - the only day I carried my camera up to the crag!

Volx was a relatively easy day, just sitting in the scorching sun and working out where the lines all go – binoculars are my number one purchase of the year. From there I headed out to Buoux to take a shot of someone on TCF but no-one was there – unsurprisingly as it was about 37 degrees in the shade. I then went to St.Leger and photographed the North Face, I had not been to the area in the summer before, so not appreciated how important the north-facing crags are.  I got there at about 9am to get perfect morning light on the rock.

The North Face of St.Leger in summer morning light

Then it was straight into the van and driving back to London. Leaving St.Leger at about 9.30am I got back to London at 3am after changin my ferry ticket from the following morning. A good tip I discovered for driving long distances is to play movies on my laptop and try and imagine the image – it helps if there’s lots of dialogue and I know the film quite well. Being John Malcovitch was a hoot.

Since being back I’ve split my time between some training at The Castle, more DIY, and sorting out my coaching schedule fo the remainder of the summer – I’m going to be very very busy next month! I’ve also made a decision to stay in the UK this summer and go on a bit of a road trip, taking in the South West, South Wales, and Snowdonia. I’m looking forward to giving Mark Glaister’s new guidebook a test-drive!

www.positiveclimbing.com