A Weekend With Ceuse and Chartreuse

This weekend was unreal.

My schedule of classes, luckily for me, leaves my Thursdays and Fridays free. I have three days of school then 4 days of weekend, essentially. It's pretty crazy and I would never have expected things to work out so perfectly. It's marvellous.

On Tuesday, my friend Adam from Poland suggested the idea of visiting Nice and how we had some friends going. . . .and that Ceuse was on the way and half the distance. If you don't know, Ceuse Mountain is a world-renown limestone sport climbing crag 3 kilometers long in the south of France. It is host to some of the hardest routes and has vast expanses of unclimbed rock waiting for those prepared to take the world of climbing to the next level. . .

Well, I was decided on going before he was. As soon as he uttered the word "Ceuse" I knew what I was doing this weekend. I posted on several different facebook groups I am a part of and asked if anyone had a car and wanted to drive. Well, on Wednesday, I got a message. . . and we were going!! Adam, my friend Isabelle from Germany, and I were hoppin' in the car with Ania, also from Poland!

Then, the waiting begins. . . .Thursday came and I had my first big presentation (Exposé) in French for the semester. I had the option to choose any topic I wanted to talk about for 15 minutes and be graded on. Naturally, I chose to give a presentation on the climbing system, different types of climbing, and how to use all the typical equipment for a day out on the rocks. It was a really fantastic opportunity to force me to learn all of the different names of equipment and systems which is very important for safety when out at the crag. I think I got high marks. She said I did very well, she was impressed by my knowledge of the system and vocabulary, but that I need to work on learning more verbs to describe what to do with all the things! Great advice!

Le Tour Perret in Parc Paul Mistral

 After the Expose on Thursday I, for the first time, found someone from France to go climb with on the facebook groups. We went out to a place called Le Petit Desert in the Vercors mountain range. It was very fun and was an excellent opportunity for me to fortify my knowledge of climbing's technical language in French. And I got to lead 5 pitches on wonderful rock. . .great for one day of climbing!

Thursday evening involved watching football (the European kind) and hanging out at Parc Paul Mistral!

Friday was a rest day and, to my memory, was deliberately uneventful, save for preparation for. . . .

       :D  The WEEEEKEEEEEND!!!! :D

Yea! YEa! YEA! Saturday morning. I woke up to Travel by Lotus and was ready. I was stoked. I was so. freakin'. hyped! I just couldn't believe I was about to hope in a car to one of France's and the world's best rock climbing areas. I just couldn't believe it. And off I went!

The drive down was really fun and involved playing with knots and carabiners in the back seat while checking out the beautiful landscapes and cities on our route. The first time we saw it, the wall. . .I was amazed. It was a beautiful, perfectly smooth-looking wall which circumvented a tall, majestic mountain.

First view of Ceuse Mountain

Oh. Yeah.

Getting closer!

We could see the wall for almost 45 minutes before we actually got to the base of the mountain. . .there was much anticipation and excitement mounting! We finally arrived at the parking area after some adventuring and set off up the mountain! The ladies looked at the map while Adam and I asked some climber guys for the good way up the mountain. Well, "In guys we trust," we decided and followed the climbers advice, hoping it would lead us to the trail on the map the ladies suggested. In retrospect, we should all have looked at the map. . . or just known that the women would be right. We lost the "trail" that we

Making it up the mountain!

were on while trying to take the "shortcut trail" we were looking for. This turned into bush-whacking strait up the mountain in an attempt to merge our path with the road we knew was somewhere around halfway up. . . .well. . . .yea. We didn't find it. We hiked and hiked (Straight up this mountain following animal trails) until we found this large boulder and were like, "maybe we can see where to go from on top!" We started to climb around the boulder when Isi says, "The TRAIL!" HA! Just above the boulder. . .what luck! We lost a lot of time in that hilarious escapade up the mountain, but I feel we learned something in the process. . . maybe. Anyhow, we finally reached the crag after some serious 2nd/3rd class hiking.

The climbing was fantastic. I lead first a 6a called Le Petit Monstre. It was a technical slab climb and a stout introduction to Ceuse grading. Pretty fun and mentally challenging route for me. My friends got warmed up on some top rope action and all, after some work, got the send! I next moved to another 6a, Carte Noire, a very classic, technical Ceuse line. I just couldn't believe what I was climbing, honestly. The moves were beautiful. There were four bolts of over-hung pocket pulling (move fast) which led to 6-7 more bolts on a wonderfully featured just-under-vertical wall. While climbing this route I was overcome by. . .peace. I just danced, felt, and was. The holds were small and sharp, the feet were solid and abundant, the view and exposure was unbelievable, and it just. . .felt so damn good!! I think this is my favorite pitch
(of about 40!) that I've done in France, so far.

First time taking on-the-rock pics for me

Isabelle following Carte Noir, 6a

After, I got an a 6a+ Papyrus, another classic. It was great, the same rock and even smaller, cooler feeling holds. The beginning over-hung section was fantastic. Moving into the face above I got caught up in a funky sequence, pumped out, and blew my send. Afterwards, I cruised the rest of the beautiful line, and loved it as well. There's just something about not sending a climb that messes with me and I certainly lose some satisfaction from it. The feeling of on-sighting a climb is very magical to me, and it is a shame to lose that one opportunity for the feeling. I try now to replace that dissatisfaction with a new fire to return for the send. I will be back.

This is the view from the anchor of Papyrus, 6a+ (5.10c)

The day ended beautifully. We pulled the ropes and watched the sunset overtake the landscape as the first stars came out. Together, we hiked down the mountain in darkness with abundant laughter, sore bodies, and a feeling of awe as to what we experienced this day. . .Ceuse is a magical, beautiful place, and there is no doubt I will be back. Very soon. That night, the stars filled the sky like I've never seen. I suppose it is that way in the mountains, when one is so close to the sky. I truly saw the Milky Way for the first time and learned how to find the North Star using the Big Dipper. After the journey home, I fell asleep with a happy heart.

As the sun sets over the mountains. . .

Sunday began with friends. Adam and Isabelle joined me for breakfast and we made French toast. And I'm talking like, legit style. We busted out the baguettes (French toast, right?), had vanilla-sugar and cinnamon, not to mention the real maple syrup we got. . .with coffee. Oh yeah. Breakfast was primo. As I like to say. . . "Un GRAND petit dejeuner." And with bellies full, we set off on the day's conquest. . .

Let's get hikin'!

Today we hiked Mont St. Eynard in the Chartreuse Mountains, 1,167 meters above the city. We rode our bikes to the base of mountain and got hikin'! We were following a GPS on Adam's iPhone (Google maps, essentially) that showed us a trail leading up. Well, we followed the trail and all was going great. It was a really fun hike, we found a stunning meadow, and the fall leaves were fantastic. As we hiked up a small ridge to where the mountain begins to become very steep, we started to move diagonally across the mountain, as I expected. However, after 20-30 minutes of this traverse. . . .the trail ended. Adam checked the map and we had been walking for this whole time completely on the wrong trail and into what the map considered the wilderness. Ha. Smooth. Once again, bush whacking. Realizing there was no hope in joining our former trail, we began hiking straight up the mountain towards the nearest one we could find, which we proceeded to follow to the top.

Two photos from the top. Notice the cloud line underneath us. . .

The top of this mountain was amazing and offers the best view of the city I have seen thus far. Visibility was low today, as the valley had trapped a cloud in the city. Fortunately for us, we had hiked significantly higher than this cloud, and the view above it was fantastic. We stayed on the summit for maybe an hour, relaxing and snacking, taking in the view, snappin' selfies, seeing an antique car parade, and enjoying our company.

We followed the left-most ridge on the way up.

And then. . .

"In Google we trust."

Oh OK, that way!

The descent. The "de-proach." I'm sure you can guess what happens next. Well, we follow the path back down the mountain until we reach the point of intersection of our original path (the one we lost earlier in the day) and the new, saviour path. The original path, on Google maps, was certainly a better option as it went straight to where we wanted to go! Perfect! Yet. . . .there was no path. Well, "In google we trust!" We decided to just start walking through the woods following the GPS trail until we found something that resembled a trail. This actually totally worked. However, the trail we found. . .should certainly not be on Google maps. This thing was crazy. It was VERY steep (3rd/4th class) and for the most part, if you fell, you were going to roll down the mountain (that would be devastating, it was extremely steep) or fall off (what we realized after having climbed below them to be) two 150 foot cliff faces. And our path went right between the two of them. There was a lot of, "Hey, you really don't wanna fall here, OK?"s going around. It was seriously nuts and really, really fun. 2nd level fun. Finally, we found our original path and again found ourselves in the field. Woo! Embracing our inner children, we subsequently decided to roll down the hill. And oh my gosh! Was this fun or what?!? haha! I haven't rolled down a hill in a long time! And dang, I went seriously fast!! I got my technique down, or something, because I was flying! After this (yes, there's a video), we finished our decent, hopped back on the bikes, and now I find myself full-belly on my bed, strait chillin'.

Yep, folks, that's how you have a hell of a weekend.

Much love,
Hy