Climbing stay in Fontainebleau forest

We have a meeting on Saturday morning at Nemours Saint Pierre station (1h10 from Paris Gare de Lyon station) to meet Captain Sylvain and the rest of the team. A short van transfer of a few minutes takes us to the heart of the medieval village of Larchant.

From there, we set off on foot, with a quick stop at the village's great bakery-café to start the day well. Once we've finished our coffee, we head to the blocks of the Éléphant massif for a discovery of the ecosystem that welcomes us, the distribution of individual and collective equipment and safety instructions.

Everyone progresses on the countless blocks of the massif according to their desires and their technical and physical level. There is something for everyone from beginners (level 3) to experts (level 8).

After a forest picnic, we continue our exploration by perfecting our technique and taking on new challenges.

Once our arms are well tired, we can opt for a little exploration of prehistoric caves and/or observation of our cohabitants, animals or plants.

We will leave the hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic to their caves and the foxes to their burrows to make our way to the bivouac site in a private field on the edge of the forest and begin setting up the tipis and setting up camp.

Good organic and/or local products produced a few hundred meters from our campsite allow us to prepare together a pleasant meal in the middle of nature.

Lingering at the bivouac while putting the world to rights or listen to a concert or lecture at La Grange, the cooperative village grocery store / bar / climbing wall, while drinking a local beer or lemonade: to each according to their taste for the rest of the evening!

After a night in the great outdoors, we have breakfast at the bivouac with fine products prepared by the wonderful team of young bakers from the village.

But there's no time to linger, we're back on the blocks for the discovery of a second site!

We wake up our bodies with a short warm-up walk and then explore new routes and new techniques and movements. We gain height for those who wish, test some bold moves or tackle the hardest blocks in the sector depending on everyone's preferences!

A meal break allows us to relieve the lactic acid accumulated in our forearms that morning.

The afternoon is dedicated to deepening the activity while discovering, through practice, its historical depth. It was precisely here that the illustrious Conquerors of the Useless trained in the 40s and 50s before going on to open new routes in the Alps, in the Andes or in the Himalayas. It was indeed a time when the "Bleausards" were certainly the "masters of stone" at home, but also the heroes of great untouched faces.

15 short minutes by van will bring us back to Nemours - Saint Pierre station, hopefully with the desire to return. It's so close!