The final frontier

Its gone really fast. Too fast if I'm honest. Holidays always do I suppose. You wish the weeks away to get here, and then you are here, and then almost immeadiately you're heading home. Oh well. We have had a great time. The weather hasnt been great, but we've climbed on all but two of the days, and whilst I am tired, I'm not ruined, and have no holes in tips (some would view this as a sign of a failed trip, but I think its been good).

This morning when we woke up it had rained. The puddle outside the window wasnt full though, so I hoped for just a light dusting rather than a thorough drenching and I kind of got what I asked for, but the skies were heavy and the prospects not good. Lay in to let it dry, then drove to cul de chien to find Michelle's phone and try eclipse again. Also because there seemed to be a good variety of bimbling to get us warm. This latter statement is true, but we reckoned without the weight of goons also at the crag. You know the type, university climbing club goons in their zip off trews with slow boat sloppy joe shoes and barely used top end DSLR. They crawl like rats from 3b to 2c, sloughing wet sand onto the holds as they go. This about the forest i do not like. i suppose I did go at easter. Anyway, its so overbearing we go to eclipse. I havent pulled on yet - this isnt the warm up I thought of, but I get started and actually make progress - supporting the theory that it was condensing the night before. However, as I am trying to get my left foot in the bottom of the crack it starts fucking raining and all bets are off.

Michelle had left her phone somewhere in the rocks last night, so we had been tasked the unlikely task of finding it (as we were going anyway), but after a good hours search we'd turned nothing up and had reported it lost. Then my phone rang (I had been ringing it constantly to see if we would hear it) and it was some locals who had heard it. Through schoolboy french and pigeon english we got them to come to us and got it back. Drove to Milly to return it and have a coffee. Saw the Whittaker clan. Had a nice chat and then went and ate cheese whilst wondering where would be dry. By now, the sun was out.

We drove down to l'elephant, having been told it dries fast, but the roads were drier in milly. Trepidation set in. Nevertheless we walked up to the boulders and did a bit of bimbling - this is another crag with good bimbling options. I wanted to do Barre Fixe, because people kept saying it would be right up my street. Asked some italians what to do and their sequence (wack) seemed to involve a mono. Hmm. I dont feel warmed up enough to be pulling on a mono, and not least one with a sharp edge and bad feet. Someone I thought to be john radcliffe turned up and suggested another method - this is more like it I thought, these are holds I can use (this evening, looking on bleau.info - this second sequence seems the accepted way). After I get told what to do I manage to do it, and the top is wet and therefore sketch, but these are big holds and wild horses couldnt pull me off (as long as they were very small and shod in rollerskates).

My desire is unsatiated by this last tick - i still want more. I need to close my account on berezina, so in the hope that it will be dry we set off northwards to bas cuvier beneath some of the heaviest, darkest looking thunder clouds either of us have ever seen. Of course, I wont be turned back until it is 100% definately soaking, which of course it is. I wonder if I will ever learn and at least save myself time and petrol? anyway, it doesnt matter - last chance hotel and all that. Having really exhausted every last chance of doing any climbing we return home for the earliest finish on any climbing day so far and enjoy the amazing mega shower at MaisonBleau. There really are few pleasures greater than a massive shit when gasping, or a hot shower at the end of a hard day.

SO thats it. Tomorrow the fairly epic drive back north. Back to the board, and what sounds like a rainy Peak.