Another short visit to the forest, unlike last time the forecast looked stable. My intentions were to have a few sessions in the Island. But those plans quickly evaporated when I warmed up on the first day. Conditions where 'summer like', not good for slopers but very good for chilling out. The first day we started at Rocher Guichot, a rather nice area that I never visited before. I briefly tried Le Bossu de Notre-Dame 7c+/8a. A nice boulder but not the best choice, sticking a sloper in the sun is hard when it is 23 degrees. I'll come back to finish this one for sure. We escaped to Rocher Gréau.

I wanted to try Le Toit du Gréau 8a, a north faced roof problem without slopers. That one felt hard, I couldn't even do the first move. Luckily the first move was the crux, the following moves still felt hard but not as vicious as the first. I doubted if I could do this one within a few days. In the evening I checked some video's of the boulder and noticed some differences with my method. Especially the foot placement of the first move was different, maybe with the new beta... The second day I didn't return to Le Toit du Gréau, I wanted to do Opium 8a instead.

  Opium is another 'summer' problem and I previously tried it a couple years ago. Feeling stronger than the last time I tried Opium, I hoped to make a quick ascend. Things turned out differently. For some strange reason the crux heelhook didn't stick, and normally heelhooks are one of my strengths. I couldn't send the problem in one session, so we came back in the evening. The temperatures where way better and that was noticeable to the friction. The only downside where the mosquitoes ;-) Finally I did Opium, a so called easy 8a but for me a tricky one. With regained confidence I went back to Le Toit du Gréau the next day. The new beta worked pretty good, thank God for the internet :-) This one is a hard 8a for sure, maybe even 8a+. After sending Le Toit I was happy, sending two 8a's in three days is not a bad score. But a climber is always hungry! So I began trying the moves of Chaos 8b, the sit start of Le Toit du Gréau. It adds about 10 really physical moves to Le Toit. I had a good session in Chaos and could link all the moves to the starting position of Le Toit, but arriving there I was completely exhausted. Another one for the project list and a good one for warm weather, maybe a summer project?   All photos by Sophia Bitlloch