[Adam Lincoln]

Off to font tomorrow for 5 days. Far too warm for it but its a friends b-day.

Any recommendations for somewhere that stays a bit cooler other than 95.2 and Apremont?

Ta

[BenF]

I was in font a couple of weeks ago (passing by on the way home from further south) and despite the heat managed to get some good climbing in.  Went to Petit Bois near Nemours which was nice and cool in the trees, plus it seemed to get a good breeze.  Obviously friction wasn't what it should be, but much better than I expected. 

[Adam Lincoln]

Yeah Petit Bois, but have been once and done most stuff thats good.

Whats Elephant like when its warm?

[BenF]

Whats Elephant like when its warm?

In my opinion...  about as rubbish as when it's cold. 

Probably full of english university climbing clubs too (sorry for the prejudice but my visit to Elephant was in my opinion (and my girlfriend's opinion) ruined by vast numbers of English people just about everywhere there and geting in the way). 

[RichardB]

Heffalump will be as warm as anywhere.

[monkey boy]

Conquibus long vaux is pretty good when warm, i stopped off there for 1 day this summer! Its just outside milly la foret! You can get an up to date topo off bleau! It is quite hard to find stuff but once found well worth it although there arent tonnes of problems.
Puislet is pretty good too other wise known as paradis i think its under trees in what looks like an old quarry. Lots of good problems, quite high stuff but cool, again topo on bleau or in new Godoff font guide.
Good luck!

[Duma]

Elephant will be too warm I'd say - south facing and no shade to speak of.
The climbing is in no way shit, though admittedly somewhat overcrowded - try a weekday.
If you're objecting to the crowds then manoury's worth a look - just up the road on the left past dame jouanne.

[Stu Littlefair]

Whilst everyone is quite correct to say that Elephant will be roasting, the roof with Sherpa on it will be shady and cool. Only 2 probs though...

[inn wislon]

a lot of videlles is under trees, you might get some shady dank spots in there...I'm dying to try this one....
http://bleau.info/videlles_abbatoir/8908.html, mind you could be quite green.....

[Johnny Brown]

Forget about doing hard stuff, go to Dame Jouanne and do the Mauve circuit - the most famous in the forest and with good reason. Totally amazing, three hours of wonder. Nothing desperate (the grades are ludicrously low) but the men will be sorted from the boys at some point, for sure.

[account_inactive]

I'm suprised that Johnny didn't mention this beauty

http://freakclimbing.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1328

[Jim]

Forget about doing hard stuff, go to Dame Jouanne and do the Mauve circuit - the most famous in the forest and with good reason. Totally amazing, three hours of wonder. Nothing desperate (the grades are ludicrously low) but the men will be sorted from the boys at some point, for sure.

are you suggesting you and bungle are real men?

[Paul B]

Hautes-plaines? some good stuff there to do, nice steep 7a+ roof up at the far end, should stay quite shaded...

[Bonjoy]

Gorge d Houx has a good amount of well shaded probs. The classic Gargantout being a fine example

[Jim]

This is definately a major classic of font, plus it really cold down the bottom in that big cave thing. I think this is a must see/do problem in font. any video or photo's really don't do it justice at all. plus the sitter(s) are really good also. would of been good to spend some more time looking and climbing the other problems here but time was short and we had an agenda

[dave]

elephant is a dogshit venue at any time of year. about 1/10th the amount of climbing of any of the other places and most of the best stuff is death highballs. lets face it its only popular cos the first boulder you come to bears a passing resemblance to a pachyderm, adn once you've seen it once it stops being interesting. and it is always full of british Uni clubs, what with it being known as a fast drying crag.

95.2 and apremont are classic winter sun fast drying crags, very open, so aught to be absolutley shite in hot weather.

a good place for good varied shady easy stuff would be bois rond, near drei zinnen. also there are a few lowball things in cool shady caves at drei zinnen worth chiggy hecking out like this:



you'll probably find the odd shady problem on positive holds at every crag though, you've just got to scout around a bit.