Oh yeah, that's what getting pumped feels like...

Finally made it climbing again. It's the second time I've been on a rope since we last ice-climbed!?!?! Visited a great gym just outside of Paris. I remember Guillaume saying that nobody checks that you can actually climb in France, and that certainly seems to be the case here. As long as you can pay, you can climb... (Ha, I dug through the archives, and this is actually the place G mentioned!)

Can never remember how to convert grades, so we started off with a a 5a and a 5b+ so I could get dialed in. These felt like 5.7-5.8, which agrees with Wikipedia's handy conversion table. Can't really remember the sequence of climbs, but we mixed toproping (5c, 6a, 6b+) with some leading (5c, 6a+). I pretty quickly ran out of gas, and got rudely spit off of a 6a+ at the third clip, but I managed to finish the rest. One thing G didn't mention was that on many lead routes they have autolocking biners at the anchors. Try threading your rope through that with one hand when you're pumped! I was advised next time to bring a sling for the desperation clip...

The place is great. Big open spaces, tall walls and a good mix of routes with weird features like cracks thrown in for fun. Definitely try to make it back again.