On April 2nd I promised to give the full story of my first FA soon. Now, more than 3 months later, I only give you a short story of the 3-week rockclimbing trip I made in Springtime. I apologize for that and hope to become a more up-to-date climber in the future. 😉 So here it comes:

After the winter break and a few months of indoor training, I was looking forward to feeling rock again. Now the question was: where to go? Our French friend Seb Richard, suggested a project in Romeyer, a climbing spot in south-east France. It seemed like an exciting idea, so I decided to give it a chance. The first time I would try a never-climbed route…

It turned out to be a rather short, traversing, crimpy and skin-eating project which was not exactly my style, but… it felt possible. And after a process of working out the movements, memorizing all the holds and footholds, starting to do real attempts, making good progress, falling about 4 times at the last hard move just underneath the chain and deciding to do one more attempt before the day was over, I finally clipped the chain. Wow, my first First Ascent!

Pic by Seb Richard

Thanks to Jean-Elie for giving me his bèta even though he was very close to succeeding himself. He topped it right after me. Congrats! 🙂
Seb Richard was the passionate photographer next to me while I was doing attempts. Thanks for the pictures and videos!
And of course I don’t want to forget my parents who so lovingly support (and belay!) me whenever I need it.

And the grade? I personally thought it was a hard 8c+, perhaps an 8c+/9a. Some climbers suggested 9a, but I’m still not convinced that it is truly 9a. I’m looking forward to more sends and opinions about this route!

After this, the trip wasn’t over yet so I moved to Pierrot Beach near Pont-en-Royans to try another project. I was able to do all the moves of this route, but had to leave it due to bad weather. Rain, fog, a cold north wind, … I had 2 options left: going north (meaning home) or going further south. I chose the last one and went to Orgon Canal where I climbed Bronx.

A few more details:
Ma belle ma muse (grade to be confirmed) – 9 attempts – about 6 climbing days
Bronx (8c+) – 3 attempts – 2 climbing days

And some nice posts about my trip to France: Crush Crux – Siked! (in Dutch) – 8a.nu