I had always wanted to go climbing in Europe, France in particular. As it is for many, Ceuse was the destination of choice. A world famous crag of immaculate streaked limestone in a majestic setting, what more could you ask for? A plan was hatched to set off on a 5 week trip starting in mid June 2011. This coincided nicely with my wife Alicia heading off to the good old US of A for a month of swinging & debauchery with a few girlfriends.
I had heard from quite a few people that Ceuse can be a very busy crag, especially in high season, and the more I researched the more I started to worry. I love climbing for many reasons, meeting new and interesting people being one of them, but as your mother always used to say “Everything in moderation”. I wanted to go on a climbing holiday, somewhere amazing, somewhere new but also somewhere I could relax, enjoy the climbing and not worry too much about anything else. I wanted to be able to try any route which took my fancy and go for a red-point when I felt ready, not when it was my turn. Finally after re-reading the Pleb’s epic trip report (http://captainsofcrushaustralia.blogspot.com/2009/09/second-best-cliff-in-world.html), I began to realise that perhaps Ceuse wasn’t what I was looking for this trip.
One cold weekend away in the Grampians with Grosey, we got talking about his euro-crusher tour of 2006. He had spent a month in the Gorges du Tarn during his trip and raved about the place, it's setting and giant 50 meter pitches of limestone pumping up imposing, and often run out walls. The next few days found me trawling the internet for as much information as I could find on the tarn. It didn’t take long for me to realise that this was a world class crag, and after looking at countless images and reading a few articles on the place, I was sold. How was this place not already on my radar? A little bit more searching revealed that within 20 minutes drive of the tarn, lay the Gorges de la Jonte and Gorges de la Dourbie, both of which have hosted Petzl Roctrip's in the past, so there would be no shortage of great climbing to be had.
Gorges du Tarn guide, climber on Les ailes du desir (8a/29) on the cover. One of the best routes ive done.
Paulie on the train to Montpellier
I still had one problem though... No climbing partners. Luckily that problem lasted about as long as fat Nick Sutter swearing off ice-cream. One mention of a climbing trip to France to my friends Pat & Mel had them hooked. Shortly after, Pablo the Italian greyhound joined the team, and last but not least, one of my best mates Chris threw his hat in the ring. The team was assembled, plans were made and I continued to scour the internet like a deranged porn fiend looking for videos, photos and any beta I could find. The result of all this “preparation” was that by the time I finally arrived in the tarn, I was able to navigate seamlessly through the guidebook and between crags, name all the classic routes at all grades and generally make myself look like a sad sack with no life to the rest of the team. The other problem with this approach is that you end up with a hit list containing 300-400 routes, clearly a difficult task to achieve in just over 4 weeks.
D-Day: After escaping Melbourne airport by the skin of our teeth (the airport was closed for a few days an hour after we flew due to a volcanic ash cloud), it was simply a matter of a lazy 22 hour flight, 4 hour train ride and 2 hour drive before we arrived in the tarn. Driving down the valley into Millau the first thing you notice is the vast amount of rock in the region. We gawked at crag after crag of gorgeous limestone scattered across the valley only to find out later that there was little to no climbing on any of it as it was all too far from the car. The French, and euro’s in general, are so spoilt for choice when it comes to quality climbing!
We stayed at the lovely Camping-Beldoire in the quaint little village of Les Vignes. If you’re climbing in the tarn, Les Vignes is probably best place to stay. Its close enough that you can walk to the climbing if you wish, has a small supermarket, couple of little coffee shops and most importantly a ‘depot de pain’, which is a bakery and not the local BDSM venue as we initially thought.
The view from our pad
The first few days was spent getting a feel for the rock, working out when everything was in the sun/shade, trying to find an open supermarket and drinking quite a few beers. At 12 euro a slab, it seemed a crime to not knock back a few cold ones at the end of a days’ climbing. We visited a number of fun crags including Club House, La Muse, Tressor du Zebra and de que fas aqui in the first few days. There was loads of variety with corners, thin faces and of course steep pocket pulling on offer. Highlights from the first few days were the 35m Jeux de page (6a/19), Tressor du Zebra (7a/23), a soaring traverse that would be perhaps the best 7a in the tarn closely followed by Les coluilles au cul (7a/23) an amazingly long and delicate technical corner and face. Chris, Pat and I got our boulder going on a short little 8a/29 at sector La muse called tu me dezolve, while Pablo opened up an account on the short and sharp 3615 Biceps (7b/25).
The view!!
Pat on Tressor du Zebra (7a/23), a stunning line!
Chris tu me dezolve (8a/29)
Most of the crags in the tarn get morning sun, and start to come into the shade in the early arvo. This suited me to a tee. Anyone who’s climbed with me will know I’m not exactly a morning person. In fact, on a trip to Thailand in 2006 I was dubbed “Captain Snooze”. Thus a typical day in the tarn for Chris, Pablo and I went something like this... Get up about 9:30am, gorge ourselves on coffee, Master Crumble, baguette and generally laze about. Come 2pm or so we would head off to the crag and climb till roughly 9:30pm. Head back to the cabin, cook diner, drink beer, watch family guy or the mighty boosh for an hour or so then pass out.
On the other hand, Pat seemed to find the best conditions of the day were early mornings in the blazing sun (He is from WA after all) and took a particular liking to the impressive and ever popular de que fas aqui sector. Even though he hadn’t climbed for a few months prior to the trip, he found form quickly and managed to knock over a host of classics including Moulas Fritas (8a/29), ???? (7c+/28) and a host of onsights in the 7a-7b+ range.
After the first few days, confidence was growing and we started to scope out a few of the harder things on offer in the area. An evening at the very steep Gullich sector saw us knock over a fantastic little 7c/27 called action discrete, which ended up being one of the highlights of the trip for me. Not because it was an amazing 5 star classic, but for the fact that I managed to send in near complete darkness whilst wearing a head torch. More impressive though was Pat sending it as a warmup before breakfast the next morning. Over at Moulin à huile was a beautiful scalloped scoop of small pockets involving an intricate series of cross throughs called Auver gniaque (7c+). This little beauty went down 4th burn for me and Pat, while Chris pulled out all stops to flash the thing. It was fantastic to watch, though his comment of “There’s a new sheriff in town boys” whilst lowering off the route was a little concerning.
In the meantime we started to notice something strange occurring in amongst the ranks. It seemed that about 4pm every day Pablo would get this glazed look about him followed by 2-3 hours sitting by the pool drinking beer and eating potato chips. We never caught him in the act, but there was no doubting the fact that he must have been sneaking of into the bushes for a few sneaky cones. Of course, he flatly denied it, but I’m sure this was simply because he didn’t want to share. He took a particular liking to our rest day activates which included kayaking down the tarn river, visiting the beach at Montpellier, shopping at Decathlon (The Bunning’s warehouse of outdoor stores) and smashing out the French pastries like nobody’s business. “Pan of chocolate anyone?”
Edit: As it turns out Pablo had just found out he was going to be a dad!! So in hindsight I can understand this strange behavior. Congrats Pablo and Col-train!!
Tennessee Wall: The wall we came to Europe for.
We were fast running out of excuses not to get on this amazing 50 odd meter high wall. We had scoped it out during the first few days, and I think we would be lying if we said we weren’t a little intimated. Back home in Oz, we don’t really have anything to prepare you for this type of climbing. Our longest single pitch routes (Serpentine for example) are typically broken up by ledges, knee bars, hand jams etc but not here... Here you had to deal with 50+m of pocketed limestone offering no respite from the lactic acid till the anchors were reached. To add to the fun, the higher you got on the wall, the further apart the bolts would get. One look at this classic photo from the guide of a climber way out above the bolt was enough to keep us away for the first week or so.
Climber on Les Nouvelles Plantations du Christ (8a/29)
Interestingly enough, the sheriff had decided that I was up for first crack at the famous Les Nouvelles Plantations du Christ (8a/29). He’s such a nice guy. The line follows a nice easy corner to start before breaking right onto a thin face with lots of small pockets and crimps broken up by a few jugs. The position on the wall is spectacular and the climbing is only just to the left of the beautiful and world famous arête of Tennessee (8b/31). First lap up went as expected; a low fall off the first crux and a little bit of dogging had me to the half way anchors 35m up (7c+/28 to this point). I surprised myself by sending part 1 on my 3rd burn. Strangely unsatisfied though, I knew I had to go to the top. A slightly scary first lap on the top part and I’d sorted the moves, but the question grinding at me and keeping me awake at night... “How hard will that last grade 22 mantle move feel after 50 meters of climbing?” Thankfully, it felt pretty straight forward and Chris and I managed to send full 55m pitch on a fantastic summers evening a few days later. I was pretty stoked as this was one of the routes I really wanted to do while here, and it had gone down with relative ease.
Me sending Les Nouvelles Plantations du Christ (8a/29)
Me sending Les Nouvelles Plantations du Christ (8a/29)
Chris lowering off Les Nouvelles Plantations du Christ (8a/29)
We spent the next few days doing a bunch of classics in the 6c-7b range. The tarn really shines in these grades, with classic after classic popping its head up. At the Grand Twat (Toit), Naissance and Produit Daubant (7b/25) were both fantastic. The Canyon sector offered the technical and pumpy Tot ou’ tarn (7b), and up at L’amphi, La veuve noir (7b/25) and Jour de doye (7a+/24) were both incredible 35 meter pitches of intricate face climbing and probably a couple of the highlights of the trip for me. At de que fas aqui there was the super techy and intimidating C100 francs (6c+), the long and thought provoking Self Control (7a) and the amazing corners and laybacks of Fariente (7a).
Back up at Tennessee it was time to try Les Ailes du desir (8a/29), another famous route on this amazing wall. The English translation is ‘the wings of desire’, and I couldn’t think of a more appropriate route name. Pumped out of your mind miles above your last draw, you have to fully commit to the crux sequence or risk a huge fall. It’s completely safe of course; the wall is so steep you just end up hanging in space, but for some reason that doesn’t make it any less exciting. The route can be broken into two sections. It’s (7b+/26) to the halfway anchor, and I was quite keen to have a crack on onsighting the first part. I had managed to avoid seeing anyone on the route over the first few weeks and set off up the funky start. After a delicate stemming section you traverse rightwards on some huge buckets before pulling into a few little boulder problems. I kept on pushing through and before I knew it I was at the first anchors. I had a brief moment of celebration in my mind as I had just onsighted my hardest pitch of climbing, but I was still on the wall. Shaking out and looking up at the imposing wall above, I figured, “I’m here now, I want to do the whole route, I may as well have a crack!” After recovering as much as I could (which wasn’t much) I ventured out onto the exposed face and tried to climb as smoothly as possible. After 3 more bolts of climbing I was about 40m up with only another 15 or so to go. I started to think, I might actually onsight this whole thing... Clearly delusional, I moved up to a good positive pinch and could see that the next sequence was going to be tough. Huge move out right, then about 6 stupidly small hand movements gained me another 6 inches of height. I was boxed, so pumped, but kept pushing and made a big throw to what looked to be a large pocket... It wasn’t. I was off, but super psyched to have given it a good crack. Turns out I had fallen of the start of the crux sequence which was seriously cool. From a pair of shotgun pockets you cross up with your left hand to a shallow 2 finger underling, work the feet up and bust out right to a mono. Feet up again and pounce to a good edge with the right hand, then technical grade 24ish climbing to the top after that. Chris made a valiant flash attempt, getting well into the crux sequence before pump got the better of him. In keeping with the symmetry of the trip so far, we both sent on another perfect French summers evening, before retreating back to camp for a swim, celebratory pizzas’ and Ice-cream.
Nice place for a dip when the weather was warm
With only a few days to go, I was relaxed and happy to go with the flow. I had done the two routes I came to Europe for, two amazing long pitches, famous routes on a fantastic wall. I couldn’t have been happier. We did some super fun routes up at Le Trone and Shaddocks, or was it shamrocks, I can’t remember? Pablo managed to drag himself away from his bong long enough to cruise his project at La Muse, 3615 Biceps, in process ticking his first 7b/25. He finished of the trip nicely by climbing the super steep Body Building (7a+/24) about six times. A huge improvement for the lad, I can only imagine what he could achieve if he just laid of the cones.
On our last day I managed to punt of the very last move while attempting to onsight Le plasir qui demonte (7c/27) and then completely loose my shit when I fell in the same spot on the second burn. Thankfully, I managed to bag the route 3rd shot for my last route of trip and super nice way to leave the tarn. The sheriff of course showed me what I punter I am by flashing the thing.
So there you have it, Gorges du Tarn. There is so much I have left out of this little trip report, so many amazing routes that didn’t get a mention and a heap of fond memories that will stay with me always. We had the place almost to ourselves and the weather was primo. Coupled with the fact that the scenery is some of the most beautiful you will ever see, I would highly recommend it to anyone keen to sample the delights of French limestone. I hope one day I can go back as we only just scraped the surface of this majestic place.
We heard on the grapevine whilst overseas that the Ceuse campground was chock full and there was roughly 300 people staying in the carpark... Glad we gave that one a miss.
Till next time.
