Last weekend Hillary and I completed the France adventure sampler triple crown: Paris with Abe, skiing in the Ecrins and climbing on the coast all without missing a day of work. Completely different worlds all within less than three hours of travel from Grenoble. There was much to celebrate though beyond the compact wonders of France: most of all our anniversary, which for the first time in three years we chose not to spend in the context of a pre-dawn wakeup in a crowded, smelly refuge, but in the comfort of a rented Airbnb studio just outside of Cassis. Also it was my first time wearing climbing shoes in 4-months, and I am happy to say that I was able to high step and hand jam without pain (just weak muscles)...
We did the ultra-classic Ramond Traverse, which features 4th-class scrambling on narrow ledges above the water followed by two pitches of 5.7 to get back to the plateau. The next day we got sandbagged on the Liautard Route on the Sirène (FA 1927), which was described in our guidebook as 5.6 and re-bolted in the 1980s. We later found through our own experience and other topos that the route was 5.6 R/X and 5.9 A0, and polished! Fortunately the slightly spicier than planned re-entry went well in the end, and I even had the pleasure of further testing my ankle at the end of day by carrying both packs back to the car while Hillary embarked on a late afternoon trail run. All in all a great weekend!
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| "La perle des Calanques" - En Vau |
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| Cruising the Traversée Ramond above the Calanque de l'Oule. |
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| On the last pitch of the Ramond. |
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| On an exceptionally well-protected stretch of the Sirène. |
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