Fontainebleau Climbs: The Finest Bouldering and Circuits

Rating:
Summary: The guide for the ultimate bouldering destination!
Review: Well, what can I say, Fontainebleau is the world's premier bouldering destination. There are thousands of beautiful sandstone boulders strewn through the forests south of Paris and Whether you boulder V0- or V12 (~5a to 8a+) there are literally thousands of great problems for you to do. Go there or be square!

This is really the only guide you'll probably ever need whether you plan on visiting for a day, week, month, or dare I say lifetime.

Because of the complexity of the forest in general and problems inparticular (There are about 3000 problems mapped by this guide!!!) it would be easy to create a guide that was nearly useless. The Montchaussé's have done a great job to cut the areas into digestible chunks. Moreover they've tailored the book so that almost whatever length of time you're visiting for and whatever skill level you climb at, it will be extremely useful for locating climbs for you to try. The map graphics are well conceived and easy to use, something like a treasure hunt really!

The book is organized primarily by "circuits" which were first created in the 1940's by mountaineers who wanted a way to train for routes. A circuit is a group of problems forming a "trail" that are roughly the same difficulty. Generally a circuit will have about 40 problems in it and there are over 200 of these circuits today ranging in difficulty from childrens to elite. This book covers over 100 of them. There are also "off-circuit" problems which are generally very hard classics. Lists of specific types of problems (traverses, problems to improve balance & footwork, and suggested problems to work through grades) compliment the circuit maps. There are also sections and blurbs of history and local color that you can read in-between attempts or while relaxing with a glass of wine!

What's missing? Not much, some index of super-classic must do problems would be nice, but then again most of the problems are at least interesting, or would be moderately classic at most areas in the US... A map of Gites and to the Carrefour (supermarket ...) would be nice. I finally did figure out how to get there...mmmm Yum, stinky cheese and great wine!