BIGRIG in Bleau!

This month we had the pleasure of introducing some of our talented young students and their families to the magical bouldering destination that is Fontainebleau!

For anyone unfamiliar with Fontainebleau, it's located about 50km south of Paris. Surrounding the town is a vast pine forest, full of beautiful sandstone boulders. The forest has a rich history for climbing, and people from around the world make the pilgrimage to test themselves on the notoriously technical and challenging blocs.

I've been fortunate enough to have visited the forest to climb on many occasions including living in Fontainebleau for six months a few years ago, so I know my way around and it feels in many ways like a second home.

As anyone who has visited Font will be aware, the style is pretty unforgiving, requiring a good balance of strength and technique (even on the warmups!). Many people go with high expectations only to get spanked on 4a blue circuit problems. We began the trip with an open mind, but we could have in no way expected such impressive performances from such a short visit. We were blown away by how well the kids managed to apply everything they had been taught indoors to some very tough problems. We had the chance to see each of our little team achieve climbs above and beyond their personal goals. Some overcame their fear of slabs, some learnt to trust their feet, we even had one climb their first 7a+. It was an overwhelming success and we could not be more proud of any of them.

Thanks for a great trip!

- Mike