Orpierre and Goodbye to new Friends

Picture: Orpierre Panorama

For our final day climbing Adrian and I took a trip to a new location: Orpierre. Orpierre is a small mining town about an hour drive North East of where we have been living in Pierrelongue. The drive was not so bad and along the way I got my first glimpse of the French Alps.

Picture: Panorama of Alps in the distance on drive to Orpierre

Picture: Panorama of Alps in the distance on drive to Orpierre 2

We pulling into the parking lot and look around wondering how so many ropes were up when the parking lot was so empty. We made our way from the parking lot to the base of the climbs on the back left wall. They seems to have the best looking rock and were not covered with gumbies. Not having a guide book for he area I figured this was the best place. Its also gave Adrian a good vantage point for getting pictures of all the different sectors.

After snapping pictures of all the different cliffs in the area Adrian gave me a few belays on some warm up climbs. Since I had brought my 100m rope I linked together two pitches of a climb right to the top of the cliff graded 5c and 6a. The climbing was easy and straight forward. I was tired from the previous days adventures and had no problem taking it easy. I followed up with a 6a+.

Adrian then hiked out for some more shots while I stayed back and moved to the left. A couple of French climbers from Laval were going up a 6b and found it hard and got about half way before they got shut down by the crux. I volunteered to climb the route and get their draws back down. I managed to get up to the crux move which had seeping water because of the rains over the past couple days. I made the crux move, a four feet reach to a giant pocket. To my great surprised the pocket was completely filled with water which spashed out and tricked down the rock wetting all my foot holds on the left side. I worked around the wet foot holds to make another 4 foot reach to an edge but because I couldn't use the left hand foot holds because they were wet I slipped off. I tookk a brief rest then pulled back on and completed the climb.

Adrian returned and we both did the 6a+ next to the route I cleaned for the French climbers from Laval. Packed up and moved over to an area of vertical to slightly overhanging gray wall with horizontal ledges midway up.

I was feeling tired so I jumped on 6b+ but got smoked at the crux. My head was clearly not in it anymore so I called it a day. Adrian went on to climb it and then onsighted a 7b+ to complete our day.

We headed back home and packed up that night. I spent the evening saying goodbye to Christian, Gabriel, Jess and Ollie. I hope to visit them again when I return to Europe.