Monthly Archives: June 2014

Jun8

Spring Break 2014 – Climbing in Luminy and Morgeiu

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Wednesday, 21-May-2014

Location: Cassis, France – Les Calanques  D’Morgeiu and Luminy

 

This morning was basically the same as Tuesday morning – especially because we headed to the same little town of Morgeiu to park.  Luminy can be accessed either from the nearby university or the town, and since we were hoping to get some climbing in both, we decided that the town would just be the easier option.

The drive today was… easier, I guess.  We had far fewer “Damnit French drivers!  WTF!” moments, though that may just be because we were getting more jaded to their insanity.  Also of note: Daniel loves honking the horn.  I guess it’s his Virginia heritage, but he almost never honks here in the States… now that he had a real reason to, his grin stretched from ear to ear.

 

Crag #1 – L’Abri Corier

Way too many people.  SKIP IT!

 

Crag #2 – Aguille De Sugiton

Ahh… this is more like it!  Less people, and a truly excellent sea-breeze keeping us cool.  Actually… almost cold.  Glad I brought a jacket.  At one point I literally had to stop climbing and brace against the rock to make sure I didn’t get knocked off the wall from the gusts.  It was, in a word, awesome.

    1. Permission Exceptionnelle – 5.7 & 5.9 – Lead = Daniel.  He strung these two into one larger climb, since both were sort of short.  The first pitch was rather regular face climbing, but at the center of the second pitch… well, it was a really interesting little bulge that we had to work over.  Harder for the lead though, since there’s one hidden hold way up top that was truly excellent.  Seems to be a theme here… find the hold, crush the climb.
    2. Les Helvetes – 5.8 – Lead = Rebecca.  Really fun route; super long and sort of pumpy, but definitely the kind of face / crack climbing that I love.  I climbed it twice.

At this point, we had to retreat off the climbing.  The wind had been quite nice and pleasant… but now it was just getting difficult.  Literally clawing up a climb, as the wind tears against you, is not fun.  Nor is it a safe way to lead routes.  So we took the smart move and fell back to L’Abri Corier.

 

Crag #3 (#1 again!) – L’Abri Corier

Still a lot of people.  But they’re university students, and pretty cool, and fuck it we’re going to sneak in between them and climb.  They’ve got open ropes everywhere anyways, so it’s all cool.  Yes, we do check with the “guide” – turns out she’s actually a professor at the university nearby, who teaches Sports Psychology.  They’re climbing outdoors to get an idea of fear while sportsing.  Cool.

  1. Manon Des Fontains – 5.7 – Lead = Rebecca.  Very long climb that goes up a huge left-facing dihedral… quite similar to my favorite climb at Rumney (Holderness Corner), and we have a blast on it.
  2. Choupinette – 5.3 – Lead = Ben.  Very short and simple climb, but still a good fun time.
  3. Passe Simple – 5.7 – Lead = Ben.  A longer version of Choupinette, very similar moves.
  4. Poupette – 5.11b – lead = Daniel.  This climb.  Short, very hard, tough bouldering moves out of a cave to start.  Looks a lot like Cro Magnum from Crow Hill, and Daniel led it beautifully.  I… did not.  I… did not make it past the first bolt.  Rebecca and Bjorn got to the second and third, if I recall.

 

After the climb, we drove home.  Simple story, though it does have a short segment where we get home, then immediately change into swim gear and jump in to the Mediterranean near the Villa in Cassis.  Erin calls us crazy.  She is 100% correct.

Jun8

Spring Break 2014 – Climbing in Morgeiu

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Tuesday, 20-May-2014

Location: Cassis, France – Les Calanque D’Morgeiu(pronounced “more-gi-eww”… I think)

 

One of my favorite things in life is waking up just a bit before my alarm, and relaxing in bed until it goes off.

That is exactly what happened on Tuesday, with the subtle exception that, after relaxing for 3 minutes (still another 10min or so before my alarm) Rebecca drop-kicks my door down while screaming a battle-cry that would rouse the stones themselves.

I may be exagerating, but that’s sure as hell what it felt like when my heart was racing at 5,000 bpm and Rebecca was asking why I wasn’t awake yet.  It’s because I’m having a heart attack thank-you-very-much!

So I got out of bed, ate bacon and eggs, drank coffee and juice, put my pack on, and we all walked out the door and into the car, heading toward Les Calanque D’Morgeiu, one of the larger and better-known climbing spots in the Calanques.

We left the house right around 8:45, picked up Baguettes at the small shop, and were on the main road right around 9:00… just in time to hit French rush hour (Ed Note: in France, people get into work at 9:30, on average).  French

rush hour, in a word, is terrifying.  I don’t know how Daniel survived the driving, but I was quite happy to sit in the back and silently wish that Vespas wouldn’t pass us, at 60 mph, with roughly 10ft to spare before being crushed by a semi.  See… the main road we took went between Cassis and Marseilles… it was two lanes.  One lane each direction.  No divider.  100kph speed limit.  Yeah.  Also, on the side of a mountain with a flimsy guard rail.

But we survived.  By the grace of Vespa-girl, we survived.  And I mean, the roads won’t get any worse, right?

Hah.

The road into Morgeiu.  Twisting and turning through the mountain, more hairpins and switchbacks than a person could easily count.  Two directions, on a road less than 10ft wide.  The trick, we learned, is to constantly honk your horn when you come to a blind turn or curve. That way, the drivers coming straight at you, have time to pull into a tiny little pullout to let you pass.

Ohh, and there are no guard rails.  Don’t worry, it’s only a 400ft drop off the side of this insanely narrow road.  It’s kinda sloped too, so we’ll probably survive.

The fact that Daniel could still climb after gripping the wheel on that drive… that’s true strength and endurance.

 

Anyways, we survived.  We parked in a little lot.  We walked to the first crag, found a huge schoolgroup, and then walked some more.  No real trails, but a lot of thin social trails.  <shrug> When in Rome…

 

Climbing!  The area we settled into was called Le Cret Saint Michel, and the specific wall was La Creche…

  1. L’Estrello – 5.3- Lead = Ben.  Nice and clean route; face climbing with a few interesting moves.  Not rough, but not super polished either.
  2. Santo Vierge – 5.4- Lead = Daniel.  Basically the same as L’Estrello
  3. Jesu – 5.7- Lead = ???.  Very interesting start, with a lot of sneaky and neat moves
  4. Sant Jose – 5.5- Lead = Ben.  Very solid route that linked with Jesu.  A lot of similar sneaky moves, where it’s horrible until you find that one hidden hold.
  5. Lou Mounie – 5.9 – Lead = Rebecca.  Another fun climb, though a lot of the little moves were rather sketchy
Jun7

Spring Break 2014 – Climbing in En Vau: Take 1

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Sunday, 18-May-2014

Location: Cassis, France – Les Calanque D’En Vau (pronounced “onn vow”, if I got it correct)

 

En Vau is a Calanque right near the house we were staying at – literally only a walk away.  Thus, it was the first one that we headed to (And the last, though that story hasn’t been told yet), so after breakfast on Sunday everyone packed up their gear and started the walk over.

“The walk” consisted of maybe 5 minutes on the roads of Cassis, before we found the official parking lot for the trail head and started into the Calanques themselves.  We had to pass through a small one labeled Port Mieu, though the trails in that area were rather light and easy, before we actually broke into the real trails that worked their way through the mountains toward En Vou.

See, a Calanque is very similar to a Fjord, in that it’s a small strip of ocean that pencils in through cliffs and spires.  I think the technical difference is that a Calanque was carved by riverwater, but you’d have to check with a geologist for the actual information.

All I know is – the hike?  It was steep, and long, and really fun. The rock in this area isn’t the usual New England granite – instead, it’s a softer sort of rock (I believe a form of sedimentary rock).  That means that it wears a lot easier… which means that the thousands of people who hike these trails and climb these routes have slowly polished the rocks down – there are places where the rock is literally gem-level polished.  Kind of nice on the feet, but not really ideal for rock climbing… especially when that hold that you need is roughly the texture of oiled glass.

But we persevered – the hike down part Port Mieu into En Vou was fraught with peril and tourists (literally dozens of people clogging the trails), but once we made it in… well, the pictures describe it.  Jaw-dropping is a good term too. We set up out gear at the base of one of the larger spires, a good multi-pitch that comes highly recommended, and started up…

Climbs:

  1. La Saphir – five pitches (officially), ranging from 5.3 to 5.8
    1. Pitch 1 – 5.5 – Lead = Daniel.  This was a very fun route, though a lot of the rocks were super-polished from so much traffic going up and down the route.  It’s even got a nice little concrete basin at the bottom, so we could keep all our gear out of the wind
    2. Pitch 2 – 5.1… if that – Lead = Ben.  Just a simple traverse with 2 bolts, though it was a bit run out, so rope-drag actually became annoying
    3. Pitch 3 – 5.4 – Lead = Daniel.  Again, a simple traverse, not really much to say about it
    4. Pitches 4 & 5 – 5.7 & 5.9 – Lead = Ben.  I spun these two pitches into one, since the middle belay stance wasn’t particularly good.  17 quickdraws worth of climbing, maybe 30 or 40 meters high, and nice and steep.  Very small and polished holds throughout, but it was a really fun lead for me.  I think there may have actually been two belay anchors, but… yeah.  Better just to finish it all as one go.
  2. Descent – This is where everything went interesting.  Erin, Daniel and I got to the top.  Then Bjorn and Rebecca got to the top.  Then Johan and Magnus got to the top.  Then another two teams got to the top.
    Why didn’t we rappel off, you ask?  Well… the rappel anchors were being used by the main belay, and we were originally going to just descend the same way that we came up.
    But… that was obviously getting a little unlikely, since we were now looking at a third team coming up the face.
    So, shivering from the cooling breeze (we all had neglected to wear shirts, you see) we set a rappel down the main face with Daniel and Rebeccas ropes – a full 70m and an 80m, so we were quite confident that they could make the complete drop.
    Which, thankfully, they did!