Fun week in Annot!!

I'd first heard about Annot when climbing with Alan Carne a few years ago in Verdon, he'd mentioned he was off to a climbing festival there run by a friend. I remember hearing "Trad" & "Cracks" and curiosity got the better of me reading an article he wrote here.

This stayed in my memory and we thought we'd take a trip to visit.

Annot was a lovely destination, again in Provence, perfect for those travelling and living in a van with all the things we need.

The climbing is all accessed via a short walk across the village train tracks and up through forrest on a hill. It's all cool sandstone, with some lovely crack & friction climbing, definitely worth a visit for those who like splitters or offwidths or want a change from all the limestone, or like me, need to go to crack school.


Low down you have huge boulders mainly bolted as sport routes and a lot of friction climbing (which takes a moment to get back into after Limestone), and the higher you go you get increasingly larger crags full of splitters and offwidths which are not bolted and protectable using natural pro.

We bought the topo from the local newsagent, and set off. The Topo's are fine once you get a hang for the area, but at first it was not straight forward finding our way around. Thankfully we bumped into some others who had spent a few days getting orientated (thanks to Ronny & Kathy Ek!!), and then those who we're pictured in the guidebook (Mariana Jagercikova), and they helped us find the areas we were looking for.

It's not a large venue, but well worth a visit with cracks from equivilent VS/HVS upto mid/higher level E grades. We got about as far as E1, so will have to return.

It was a great week, brilliant contract to Verdon, and perfect to get our heads around some crack and friction climbing before heading to Valle dell Orco, and later Grimsel.

After Annot we took a brief detour down to the Med for some sun and a little more climbing on the red granite around L'estreal.

#vanlife

...moments from #vanlife, we love our van and our #vanlife

Getting off the one track mindset

So we've been on the road now for six weeks, and kind of gorging ourselves on climbing, with a 3 days on and 1 day off pattern, recently this become 2 days on and 1 day off, then 1 day on and OMG we need some proper rest!! So we've slowed things down a bit, and explored a little bit without the rope.

First, on foot, a walk through the bottom of the gorge to get a different perspective, from Couloir Samson along the river.

Lush valley floor

Pick a line, any line, 300m of uninterrupted classic crack, corner or face climbing on l'Escales.

Watching the high liners do their thing in early evening

Then by kayak from Lac Saint Croix

Then having a look around the pretty (but touristy) Moustiers

Well that's enough resting!! Let's go climbing!!!

the big V - what an incredible place!

What an incredible place!! Verdon. Had amazing times here before, but this is our first visit climbing without the amazing Alan C, so feels like punters starting on a long apprenticeship! All the best things are hard...a week in and I can't say we have our systems & heads totally dialled but we're getting there.


[easy to spot the morning abseil queue, but can you spot our van Stanley perched on the rim looking down at us?]

 
[P on the look out for our abesil start point]


[In we go...moments of commitment...]




[the new morning commute, 4-5 abseils]
      Excited and apprehensive mornings finding abseils, dropping in for a few hundred meters, trying to avoid rope epics, gawping at the views, dealing with any self doubt about whether we can actually climb out of the route we've picked, then the climbing out, often brilliant and varied and long, and onsight, and trickier than we thought, with beautiful airy views, and usually at least one moment where the movement or the bolting philosophy stop us! 

 
[P coming up final pitch of Trous Secs, getting a close fly-by from a Griffon Vulture on the left]

Mostly finishing exhausted but exhilarated, back to the van, watching the sun set over the hills around La Palud from a Belvédère, waking up fresh the next day,...wanting some more.

 
[sunset over the hills around La Palud, from Belvédère Carelle]

 
[P arrived in one of the Jardin, suspended gardens on the cliff]

 
[bad weather day, off exploring a bit, the tyrolean traverse over the river]

#vanlife 

as usual arriving somewhere new takes a few days to work out vanlife logistics efficiently. we found we can wild camp on the route des cretes and point sublime, and use a campsite once a week for washing, wifi, and water fill ups - the one 3km toward Castellane from Point Sublime works well. 11 Euro and natural by the river. the Casino supermarche in Castellane is largest/cheapest and has cheap fuel.

first taste of Big Air + reflections on Buis

South again, through field after field of lavender, headed for the first taste of big air this trip.


[View across to the Echo Logique line and the Heure Zero abseils looking down at a pair (orange) that were following us up.]

Felt the excitement and trepidation on the drive in, seemed to float away once we dropped in for some climbing on the Echo Logique route with the amazing and huge Griffon Vultures soaring around us, Verdon definitely captures the imagination!

 
[Setting off on the final pitch of Echo Logique, past the anchor by the tree. On the left is a section of one of my dream routes La Fete des Nerfs, and the Verdon river below.]

Rain has set in for fews days, so have been reflecting on fun memories from around Buis, we found camping wild in the van easy and for an area we knew little about there's some great variety...Baume Rousse, Malaucene, fun mini multi-pitch on St Julien & Dentelles de Montmirail, and the pretty but definitely nails Saint Leger. It's there I probably could have done a better job choosing the warm-up, the crux turned out to be a wasp nest located cunningly just below the anchor...do they know??


[Everything felt hard this day! Saint Leger fun after trying Gavroche et Mimi Pinson.]
 
 
[Topping out on Refarin Tire Toi in Malaucene, tough start on compact rock with small pockets, thin feet, and a bulge.]
 

[Paula topping out on a fun mini multi-pitch on Saint Julien]


 [In Saint Leger, looking over the river to some north facing steep stuff]

#vanlife notes for Buis

Good first impressions. Slightly bigger town and quite pretty. Everything we need i.e. Wifi at Tourist office, banks, boulangerie, supermarket, fuel. Haven't found service station for van tho…Surrounded by imposing Saint Julien ridge, and with two other venues within 2-3km. After much angst about where to park (town parks were camping banned), and no obvious other spots we drove up to Sain Julien and found a great spot with lovely view looking down to Buis and a Compost toilet. Pretty, peaceful, and good location. Psyched for climbing tomorrow.

Loved Baume Rousse for 6b-7a old competition wall steep vertical Also good 5-6 for Paula she enjoyed. Route quality was good. Return 1-2 more days.

Ubrieux was not so great around six shooter. Bit scrappy and polished. Slabby.

St Julien. Loads of Fun 2-3 pitch options from 5 to high sixes plus some good single pitches. Easy abseils and equipped anchors. Good free van stop with lovely view on way up plus close to town. Would return for several days.

Malaucene is tour de France Ville at bottom of mount ventoux. Lovely solid compact limestone with 2-3 finger pockets. Loved it. Some good 7a to go at. Route quality was good. Bulge like. Would return for few more days

Combe Obscure. Was good. Left wall slabby 5-6b ok. But right wall was compact solid limestone with quality routes and big pockets or balance smeering. Would return for 1  more day.

Dentilles Chaplin

Pretty environment hot hike up in the sun. Fun multi pitch 2-3 pitches 85m. From 5-6c. We both enjoyed would return for few days. Good car park. Public aire between here and malaucene.

 

Heading South to Orpierre

The original plan was to head to Orpierre first to get some mileage on what seems to be a good venue for mid grade climbing.

For some reason though, the location just didn't inspire us, so whilst we stayed for a few days, it wasn't long before we decided to up sticks and travel an hour down the road to Buis-les-Barronies which is a great base for a number of good and varied climbing areas.

 

We found Buis great, nice wild camping spot to the road to Saint Julien, nice town with good facilities (Patisseries) and wifi and supermarket, in that order, slightly warmer than Orpierre, and loads of good climbing.




  

Playing around near Buis, Paula with her gopro toy, whilst I bite off more than i can handle & finding some more weaknesses to work on haha! Met some friendly and very well known Brits at the crag, one of the great things about climbing just how accessible those at the top of the sport are, and the other day an interesting Californian whose been climbing all over the world since the 70's, he was hanging around looking for a belay, we invited him to join us and got to hear some stories.



Getting used to this warm Provence sun, the smell and sounds of spring in the air, church bells, good food, laid back lifestyle, Patisseries(!) and the steep orange & technical grey limestone.

Some practical notes for #vanlife;

Orpierre

Village has wild camping car park for vans with toilet, village has drinking water fountain, camping prince d'orange has aire service station and showers which are possible to use without stayubg. But Church Bells every hour!!

Preferred Chateaux crags, good quality routes. Bellerin less so (more sun, but too many people, and quality of routes lower).

Aire in Larange about 10km away has service station and a toilet. Quiet, but bit urban. Good Intermarche, with launderrette and cheap diesel.

On the road at last!

On the road at last!

Couldn't wait for the south so a quick detour and a first time visit to the forest of Fountainebleau staying in the pretty village of Barbizon.

A lovely few days getting totally schooled on those slopers and sketchy top-outs!!



Barbizon was a perfect spot for #vanlife, pretty, good facilities, nice boulangerie, free wifi, close to the forrest.
 

Since it was a first time visit and we're total punters when it comes to bouldering(!) we kept it simple and enjoyed the 95.2 and 91.1 sectors in Trois Pigeons, both had good easy circuits (orange and blue) were easy to navigate, and pretty settings. The few we tried closed to town of Fontainebleau were less good, harder to navigate and car parks noted for breakins. 95.2 had woodland car park and was my favourite (nord and sud).

  

Found an Aire for Water or Camping Grez sur Loing which has pretty village with boulagerie and shop.

Still totally in city lifestyle mode, but great to get on the road, we both enjoyed Font and will be back. Paula's dodgy achilles seemed ok which was great to see.

Looking at the map & at each other with excitment!

♢ = Summer
O = Spring/Autumn
۞ = Winter



Are we almost there yet....Not long now before we set-off!

Like all big decisions we've had a mixture of excitement and nerves as we've gone through the final few months preparing.

Letting go of our engrained routines, work lives, city lives, anchors, letting go of them one at a time. Preparing the logistics. It's empowering and nerve racking at the same time. We've been here before, seven years ago, so we know its a great decision with our ambitions, values and passions at its center.

Sod's law says you make these big decisions and then some things come along that seem to put the dream at risk.

First, Paula suffering an Achilles tendon rupture leading to A&E and an operation before Christmas, where we met a specialist who talked of 12 months of rehab before return to sport - arrrgghhh!! Only one option we could see...take it on the chin and get super motivated to beat the experts timetable!!

Feels brilliant as the dark winter months fade away, that after all the rehab we've done and those moments of uncertainty - she is out of plaster, out of the airboot, no more crutches, walking properly and even running, and most importantly been climbing for the past month.

Thanks very much for your help Mr Specialist in A&E, but sod 12 months, make that 4 months and she'll be back. Love the power of positive thinking, discipline, and competitive spirit!!

Second,...my turn, feeling strong and fit, psyched Paula is recovering fast, and probably overdoing my training = shoulder impingement, an overuse injury from what I think was too much fingerboarding and strength conditioning and swimming without balance, grrr, lesson learnt. My turn to get the endless list of new exercises from a Physio and stay positive. Seems its turned a corner after 4 weeks, and whilst I still feel something in the shoulder, it seems to be in much better condition.

So,...Winter is fading fast, stan the van is ready, we've found what we believe are good tenants, we've left our jobs, we've booked the euro tunnel, spring is in the air, we are both rehab'ed and we are looking at the map and each other with excitement again,...

Dreaming of adventures starting soon...

Autumn is fading, and already I'm dreaming of the adventures that start early next year with Paula...

The decision made, during the summer, now its time for the hard work; to prep finances, organise and commit to work exits, let go of our current lifestyle and routines - it can be a bit of a rollercoaster...

But, there is a great feeling when a long term dream becomes a plan and then a decision...on the road in T-5months, and plenty to do...

Love this from Fitz Cahall as a reminder whilst we do the graft and the detail to get ready...

Kalymnos Oct'15