12 Mar 8C+ for Manu Cornu in Bleau!

The strong French athlete on his hardest boulder

From the forest of Fontainebleau there are still news of notable sends!

This time the author is Manu Cornu, an athlete of the French national team that we have already had the opportunity to see in action on the mythical sandstone of the forest, for example on the occasion of the bold repetition of La Force.

In the sector of Apremont Désert, Manu has dedicated the last three months to the sit version of Le Pilier du Désert, a 7c/+ sent by Thibaut le Scour in the early 2000s and to which Fred Nicole added a version starting at the bottom of 8A+. However, the complete sit start was still an unsolved project.

This project has been now solved and Cornu has given some more details in an exclusive interview on planetgrimpe.com. From what we learn there, it is not the true first ascent, because the first ascent of this line took place three days before his one, by an unnamed boulderer who proposed the 8C. However, the method adopted by the latter was morphologically impossible for Manu, who found a method to pass that proved to be harder, hence his personal 8C+ proposal for Le Pilier du Désert Assis Directe.

With such difficulty, and with the revaluation of No Kpote Only to 8C, this line is among the three hardest ones in all of Bleau, together with the 9A of Soudain Seul and the 8C+ of La Revolutionnaire Assis.

Beyond the numbers, this boulder of force and compression is spectacular just looking at it, with an overhanging prow with slopers which is absolutely dream!

 Albertaccia 

News: Instagram / planetgrimpe.com