Tag Archives: La Saphir

Jun9

Spring Break 2014 – Climbing in En Vau: Take 2

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Friday, 23-May-14

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

 

Quote of the day:

Erin (resting on the stones) – “Yay!  I found a snail in my cleavage!”

Ben (climbing) – “Wait what now?”

 

By this point, we’re getting quite good at the whole morning routine.  Awake, breakfasted, coffee’d, bacon’d, and ready to start walking all in 45min or so… and that’s taking a relaxed breakfast where we chill, watch the sky, and eat a delicious croissant.  Or two.  Maybe one with chocolate in it as well.  This is France, I can do what I want.

Even the walk down to En Vou was quicker today, or it at least seemed a lot quicker.  I think the trail was a combination though – instead of tons of crowds, it was just us.  And instead of taking an insane detour away from the trail, we actually stuck to the normal trail that leads directly over to the Calanque.  So that probably helped.

But either way – we made it, and set up shop at Le Petite Aguille.  Climbing details are, as always, listed down below.  But the non-detailed version is that the climbing was amazing, the views were perfectly clear, and the sun was burning brightly down upon this, our last day of adventure on the Mediterranean.  We climbed, we chatted, we ate, and we posed like rock stars while summitting “The small needle”.

In fact, that posing part was pretty key – As I summitted the top, I struck a nice and solid pose… which elicited a resounding cheer from the cliffs.  What.  Why… I look around, then look down, and see that just as I finished a whole group of tourists had been walking past.  I guess they’d stopped to watch me finish the route, and took my pose as a call to cheer and clap.  Huh.  Nice to know I’m appreciated, I guess.

So we climbed, we enjoyed, etc…

Then, it was hot out.

There was a beach nearby.  A cool Mediterranean beach.  That had crystal-clear water to swim in.

We went swimming.  Bjorn went deep-water soloing; a solid traverse out a ways.  Rebecca swam all the way out to the deep water of the boat-lane.  I did some bouldering on the cliffs near the beach, and sunned myself there for a while.  Daniel stepped on a sharp rock.  We enjoyed ourselves immensely.

But there was still more climbing to do afterward…

 

 

La Petite Aguille

  1. Variante Nord-Oeste – 5.9 – Daniel leads.  Sort of.  Daniel actually lead two climbs as one… he got distracted by a shiny bolt halfway up, and decided to take a different route instead.  It’s ok though, because they were both super fun.  This one took a solid Arete to the pinnacle.
  2. La Face Norde-Oeste – 5.9 – Rebecca Leads.  Actually, since she just took one side of the route Daniel had done, and went to the correct anchor.  This climb was a bit more protected, since it was in an off-width about half of the time.  But not a normal offwidth… instead of a crack, this was a crack that lead into a cave.  Too small of a crack to fit a whole body through, but enough to chicken-wing an arm into.
  3. Note on actual summitting… it wasn’t easy.  See, the previous climbs all terminated about 10ft below the summit… and there really wasn’t any gear above the anchor.  At all.  So you had to climb up 10ft, then stand on a 4 sq.ft. ledge, then downclimb 10ft again.
    It.
    Was.
    Awesome.
  4. After Swimming   Face De La Mer – 5.6 – Ben & Bjorn Lead. This climb was directly viewing the beach, and it was quite fun.  Simple, lots of small ledges and interesting holds from the salt erosion, and somehow it wasn’t even super polished.  Crazy-talk.

 

Dalle Du Chat (A crag right by the beach)

  1. Passagers Du Vent – 5.10c – Bjorn leads.  This was an amazing climb.  I think it may be the hardest outdoor climb that I’ve completed, to be honest, and it felt like it.  Lots of tiny holds… they were good, but never where you wanted them.  I’m sure that it would be progressively easier the more times you do it, but the first time… yeah.  Lots of tough pulling, cursing, and just lunging for it.  Totally amazingly worth it.

 

La Saphir

  1. La Saphir, P1 – 5.6 – Ben Leads.  A good and fun end to a great and amazing climbing trip.  Erin and My last climb in Southern France, and it was excellent.  A lot more run out than I remember it being before, but quite fun with an amazing view at the end.  Excellent.
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!