Gorges du Loup

Me and Ben and Nick arrived in Gorges du Loup to find some of the steepest climbing anywhere. We camped on the old road, just short of some worryingly loose overhangs, and slept on boulder mats, and ate pasta and tuna for the 8 days we were there. Standard day was climb at Pupuce Surplomb in the morning, then head down to the river at midday for some swimming, then in the evening head out to Jurassic Park or Canyonne.

The swimming was amazing, despite the tons of canyoning groups. We found an excellent jumping/swimming pool with a nice 7m jump and various others. Getting to Jurassic Park and Canyonne was also pretty cool - you followed an old water pipe through tunnels and along exposed walkways for a good length, some of the tunnels were a few hundred metres long and completely pitch black, exciting with head torches with feeble batteries.

There were also some totally amazing climbers there - a dutch guy who onsighted an 8b, some Russian who onsighted 8b+, and also Tomas Mrazek, who has onsighted 8c! My achievements there were slightly less about 8s, more about actually doing a route. Managed the warm-up, and also a cool route called Diplodocus. This route had a huge tufa high up to hug with your legs, and had perfectly circular threads through it at regular intervals. After 8 days in Gorges du Loup, the heat and difficulty of the climbing was getting tiring! We headed off to Gorges du Tarn...