Rock Magazine

The world's premiere bouldering destination lures Madoc Sheehan, who packs up his family and brings them along.

Words Madoc Sheehan, photos Madoc Sheehan and Ross Taylor

As a member of the strange pad-carrying bouldering fraternity, Fontainebleau has always been a Mecca for me. During a solo trip to France in 1990, as a naïve 18 year old, I’d visited once before.
After pocket-pulling in Buoux for a few weeks, I had a spare night before flying out of Paris back to Oz. I made the quick trip down to Fontainebleau by train and walked to the nearest forest, where I camped beside the boulders and froze my arse off in sub-arctic temperatures. It was so cold that even a neat little chalk-bag warmer given to me in Buoux didn’t stop the intense burn in my fingers. Some of my fellow believers would call these optimum friction conditions, but I sometimes wonder if I developed permanent damage during that cold winter – now, even in sunny Townsville, my fingers get cold and numb if the temperature drops below 15oC.

Although I didn’t climb much that time, it left a lasting impression on me: the thick, dark forest of oak and beech, the compact sandstone rock, the promise of fine bouldering and, of course, those circuits of cool little coloured arrows and numbers showing the way through the maze of blocks.

Eighteen years later, I’ve got a decent job, a gorgeous wife, an eight-year-old son, Quinn, and an 11-year-old daughter Maya. In the intervening years I have been lucky enough to indulge in extended visits to some of the world’s great bouldering areas: Castle Hill, Hueco Tanks, the Buttermilks, Horsetooth Reservoir and the Peak District. But for all my fanaticism I’d never been back to Font – the epicentre of quality bouldering and a place of great historical importance for boulderers. Now, with a bit more money and my family in tow, I had my chance to return.
Taking the family to a climbing destination is always fraught with danger. I just hoped that there would be some sufficiently distracting non-climbing activities around Fontainebleau for them while I climbed the skin off my fingers for a week. I needn’t have worried. There has always been something primeval and satisfying about scrambling over boulders and ultimately the entire family had a ball.

The bouldering
The scope of bouldering at Font is huge and there are numerous bouldering areas encircling the town of Fontainebleau for a least 30 kilometres in all directions. There is estimated to be around 10 000 to 15 000 problems, and vast potential still remains. We visited a new area of the forest to boulder and scramble just about every day, and barely scratched the surface. We mostly picked spots from our English-language guidebook that we thought might have both good kids’ circuits and some harder circuits for me. Inadvertently, we missed the most popular spots you usually see photographed in the magazines such as Bas Cuvier, Cul de Chien and 95.2.

Éléphant
Owing to its proximity to our rented house, we spent a lot of time here. It’s a popular spot for boulderers, tourists, horse riders, posing models, families and ball tossing wallies. I was blown away by the height of some of the problems, many of them are full on highballs, especially the super hard stuff. Éléphant has nice sandy landings and the boulders have plenty of roofs with cool sinker pockets, as well as wavy blank slabs. There are some really high-quality problems there such as Le Coeur de Lion with its crimpy heart-shaped feature, and Fissure du Trio, a trio of smooth layback flakes up an otherwise blank wall. Unfortunately, the circuit arrows and numbers were very worn and although you could spot them everywhere, the Maya, Quinn and I had trouble following a full circuit. The best kids’ circuit we found took in the yellow (or beginner) problems up the hill from the main cluster. Tucked a bit out of the way, this was a quiet spot with some nice features. Like most bouldering areas, it was the shorter boulders that received the most action. The kids’ favourites included a good, steep jug haul on big buckets and sinker pockets out an overhanging wall and a long and well-featured vertical highball.

Beauvais – Rocher de Duc
Beauvais is an area well-known for its kids’ circuits and we found at least three well-labeled, easy circuits here: two white kids’ circuits and a white family circuit that wanders through the dense and shady forest. This is a much-loved part of the forest and the constant stream of school children made it a bit like a chaotic playground. I was impressed that French primary school kids get to enjoy bouldering during their physical education sessions, something I doubt the education authorities would allow here.
Maya and Quinn loved the white circuit here with its 40-odd problems. The challenge of finding the next number and following the arrows was at least as much fun as the individual problems. It reminded me of those mazes made out of hedgerows you find in 17th century mansions. Our kids are good climbers who have bouldered and rope climbed on and off for a few years, so they had no real dramas on any of the white problems and only a few of them presented a significant challenge. Their favourite white problems tended to be the harder ones, including the appropriately named ‘Big Muscles’.
I followed Maya and Quinn on a parallel circuit of moderate yellows, so every now and then we could cross paths and help each other out by spotting arrows and numbers on each other’s circuits. As a first-time bleausard I found the circuits incredibly disorientating. By the time I finished my yellow circuit I was under the impression I was kilometres away from the start, only to turn around and stumble on to our lunch spot just metres from the start of the circuit. This was one of our best days, made even better by the outstanding pastries and lunch goodies picked up in the local patisserie in Milly la Foret.

Apremont Ermitage
On the sunniest day we ventured out to Gorges d’Apremont. Using the guidebook was a challenge as the relationship between our topographic map and the hand-drawn maps in the guidebook was abstract at best. Once we found a circuit, however, it was straightforward to then extrapolate from the guide and work out where we were.
Eventually we stumbled upon an old car park and camping area in the forest, which suggested that at some stage this had been an extremely popular spot. On this day it was almost deserted and the only other boulderers were a group of young adults from Paris.

Discovering a relaxing and pleasant spot to sit and hang, we gave up on finding the white kids’ circuit discussed in the guide and just started climbing on a series of beautiful walls. On closer inspection these turned out to be part of the circuit we’d been searching for, and working our way backwards via the little white arrows and dots, we eventually found the beginning. With hundreds of excellent unmarked problems that we could all try in a peaceful setting, this part of the forest was our favourite area. The rock had brilliant features with large plates and door-handle features being common. The kids’ circuit was long, challenging and technical, with some extremely high and freaky problems that the kids loved. Not really for beginners, adults could follow their kids along this circuit and really enjoy themselves.
That day everyone enjoyed a tough little yellow problem involving a crimp on the crux move. Crimping turned out to be an unnatural technique that Maya and Quinn found difficult to master. I also discovered and climbed one of my all-time favourite problems here. An off-circuit black problem I later worked out might have been called Super Stalingrad (V6) – it was an awesome problem! In the afternoon Quinn and I climbed with the young French boulderers, who kindly shared their pads and intimate knowledge of the area. I followed them up problems in a magnificent red circuit that consisted of many brilliant V1s to V3s. I think this was the highest quality circuit I climbed during our trip.

With our new French friends and a few extra pads, Quinn embarked on a blue circuit highball slab. Seeing him grapple with the crux one move below the top of a four metre plus problem scared the crap out of me. However, after a few tentative moments and nervous support from the cheer squad of spotters, he pulled through to complete his most memorable problem of the trip. It’s interesting to note how you can be keen to get your kids to enjoy your favourite sport and then forget that they might end up doing crazy things (that I did and still sometimes do). After a huge day we eventually wandered back to the car following a path lined with ancient oak trees, along the way admiring the fluorescent green lizards that were common in the Forest.

Franchard Cuisinière
Franchard Cuisinière is an impressive spot and has some of the most difficult and aesthetic problems in the Forest. I did a few really outstanding problems here including a classic V3 called Moondance: a five to six metre gently overhanging wall climbed elegantly on spaced edges and side-pulls, followed by a slopey mantle. Like most classic problems in the Forest it seemed really tough at first, but once you worked out the technique it was spot on for the grade. This problem took some psyching up for as our small pad looked small and insignificant from high up on the crux. However, overcoming these moments of fear often leads to the most satisfying and memorable ascents for me. Cuisinière is not the best spot for kids as the boulders are large and the problems are generally difficult. We did manage to find a few nice slabs and faces for the kids on the salmon circuit, which is one of the longest circuits in the Forest. I hooked up with another local boulderer here, and we tried some amazing arêtes in a classy cluster of boulders around the classic V11 of the forest, Karma (which looked unbelievably cool and made me wish I could climb that hard). You could probably spend a lifetime climbing in this single area of the Forest, but at this stage of our trip my forearms were having trouble just picking up our herb-encrusted salami. On our walk back through the forest to the car the heavens opened and we all walked the final kilometre back, soaked and satisfied.