Sunday 1 April 2012 we left our home at 4.30 am for our 12 hours , 1200 km trip from Schelle (Antwerp,Belgium) to the French Pyreneen . No traffic jams !
Some people really love this place and other climbers came here didn’t like it and drove the same day back to Fontainebleau.
We rented a bungalow on camping “La Griole “ http://www.camping-la-griole.com/ in Targasonne (405 € /week for 4 persons). A nice camping site with a comfortable bungalow with shower, kitchen, toilet and refrigerator, the owners aren’t anymore the Dutch people that were mentioned in the guide book but they are now very nice French people . No bar , restaurant or bread on the camping but you can still buy the guidebook “Le chaos de Targasonne “ by Fred Bertin and rent a crash pad for 5€/day. Another guidebook for Targasonne and other cliffs in the neighberhoud is “Pyrenees Rock “ by Andreas & Katrin Motzet. A bakery is only 2 min driving from the camping towards Egat at the Supermarket “Super U”. No WIFI on the camping but you can find WIFI the bar in this supermarket “Super U”. We liked the camping site because the boulders are just a few meters away .In the evening we already searched for the boulders in sector Chapeau but did not climb.
Monday 2 April 2012 we first went for food and then went bouldering to Sector Dieux païens, Taz and Carrière. We climbed as long as we could because they predicted rain on Tuesday.
Ignace and Manolo :
7A traverse Rieh la moerte 45-47 (Sector Taz )
6C Ticket tacc (Secteur Carriere)
Ignace
7B traverse 45-48 Rieh la moerte. Same start as 7A but goes 5 meters further.
6C Accarian troubadour 6C (Secteur Carriere).Ignace and Manolo climbed Ticket tacc 6C
Tuesday 3 April 2012 we woke up the sun was shining so hurried up to go bouldering at sector Baleine . Ignace and Manolo tried the classic 7A boulder La Baleine. Ignace topped it and Manolo was very close because he could do the hard moves without the traverse. Some people told it is the 7A but in the guide book is mentioned DA (Départ Assis = Sit start) so the start is more to the right of the boulder. We found it really hard to find the line you have to climb. You can’t know from the guidebook but we saw it on You tube video so we know for sure how it goes. Ignace also climbed “Pute éffraction 7A+” a boulder with moves in a crack. When it started raining we climbed in a cave .Manolo worked out the moves in boulder “J’veut une yenne 7B” and Ignace and Carl climbed “La Taupe 6B+” a hard move from the sit start deep in the cave at the red arrow . At 15.00 we stopped because of heavy rainfall and went for a visit of the village Font Romeu. A touristic village with shops ,bars and restaurants. It is also famous for his excellent sports facility’s at high altitude and you can see a enormous Solar panel power plant.
Wednesday 4 april 2012
It rained all night and in the morning it was still raining. So we went for a tourist trip. We went to the village Mont Louis .Walked around in the city but did not visit the castle or Solar oven. In stead we went for a natural sulfur bath in village Lllo (www.lesbainsdello.com). Nice in and ouside baths at 37°C and sauna for relaxing. We enjoyed it. We paid 38 € for 4 persons.
Thursday 5 April 2012
Sunshine in the morning so we woke up early and climbed as much as our skin could bear.In the afternoon no more sunshine and cold temperatures. Manolo climbed his first 7B boulder J’ veut une yenne.He worked on it on Tuesday but would give this boulder a 7B a soft rating. Ignace also climbed this boulder . They both also climbed 7A+ Love cold and 7A+ Pleasure dome. Manolo also climbed the classic 7A La Baleine . An excellent bouldering day .In the evening Carl and Karen drunk champaign and we all ate Biological Ice cream.
Friday 6 April 2012
Again sunshine so although we were tired we were again motivated to boulder a last day. We went to sector Dolmen . Manolo climbed his first 7C Katalan Psycho. Ignace also climbed this 7C that they both found very soft . In the afternoon it started to rain again and even to snow with temperatures around zero degrees.
We do need to mention that although it rained a lot the boulders dried up very fast so we had no problems to boulder when it didn't rain. We only had 1 day out of 5 that we could not climb because it rained whole day. You can find hard boulders and easy boulder next to each other so tis place is ideally to climb with the whole family.We really liked this bouldering spot and would recommend it.