Rock Climbing in Ombleze, Dentelles de Montmirail, and Ombleze...

After 2 weeks in my family, it was time for me to catch back with some climbing mates, and with some nice french limestone. We first went to the excellent crag of Ombleze (south Vercors) the 11/12 of Septembre. With Donn, we tried to introduced Etienne to the hard way, i.e. camping under heavy rain, the tent set up on a non flat and rocky ground... Somehow, Etienne didn't like the experience, but me and Donn enjoyed it a lot!

We then came back to Lyon to leave Etienne, and to pick up Caroline for the WE. In order to avoid the rain, we went down south to the Dentelles de Montmirail, an old favorite. We sucked at rock climbing, but we had a bit of an adventure: we wanted to spend the night at "The Jardin", a small garden located at the top of the crag, 50 metres above the ground. To access it, one has to climb 2 pitches of grade 5c (NZ grade 17). The thing is that the wind was bloowing very hard, and the climb ended to be a mission: Donn got an excitting lead, and me and Caroline followed with the heavy backpacks (full of food and wine...). The wind was so strong that when you happened to fall, your rope was making a 30degrees angle with the vertical... I manage to dodge myself to the top with my backpack, but Caroline left her after 10 meters, on a bolt. Donn went down to help me hauling it. He made it to the top just at night...

That wasn't the end of the adventure for Donn as he decided to be strong and to sleep in is hammock, which was sounding like a noisy plane... He didn't sleep very well, actualy...

The beautifull Dentelles de Montmirail

A small spot sheltered from the wind

The following WE, I came back to Ombleze with some friends from St-Etienne. It was less adventurous, but the the food was way better, for some reasons!

The cute place we stayed at.

Playing the table traverse... All the girls ended up with bruises, I guess it's just a male's game...

Yum!