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Fontainebleau Magique

Order now for € 31,50 excluding shipping costs.

In the current offerings of Fontainebleau guidebooks, there is a massive gap left by the other new guidebooks, which just contain information on harder problems (starting at the 5th / 6th grade). Fontainebleau Magique fills this gap, by providing topos and detailed information about 50 orange, blue (and a few red) circuits in the most popular parts of the forest. As can be seen from the full list of circuits below, most of the problems presented lie in the 3rd to 5th grade range, thus targeting the beginner to intermediate level boulderers, who are looking to enjoy a representative selection of the many circuits that Fontainebleau has to offer.

The book has been written completely in French and English, and contains a lot of background information about the different areas. Describing 50 circuits could be done in less than 136 pages, but the guide has 336 pages, so over 200 pages (including a lot of colour photos) are devoted to this background information. This makes it a heavy guidebook which is not all too practical to carry around, but on the other hand, who has intimate knowledge about all these different areas? The guidebook will therefore appeal to the majority of climbers who want to visit the boulders for the first time, or those who want more information on the many more 'achievable' circuits that are to be found.

The fact that the guide isn't written by locals has its advantages and disadvantages. Guidebooks by locals tend to overlook basic information about stuff like campings, how the find the start of the circuits, and so on, which is not relevant to locals, but very relevant to other climbers. Fontainebleau Magique surprises by providing information about a number of less visited and thus quieter areas (e.g. Grand Montagne, Rocher de la Cathédrale, Restant du Long Rocher). These areas are not the most interesting ones, and therefore often forgotten, but are welcome hideouts in busy periods like Eastern. For these reasons, a guidebook written by an 'outsider' is a welcome alternative.

There are a few gripes however. For some strange reason, the author found it necessary to give names to all the described circuits, instead of using the Cosiroc numbering. As if it is up to the author of a guidebook to come up with those names?! Also, all circuits have been re-graded (which in itself might be a good thing), thus overruling the consensus among locals about the grading of these circuits. On top of that, non-existing and rather ridiculous gradings are introduced, such as 4a- and alike. The discussions on this website show that it is very hard to give a single grade to a boulder problem, so why introduce additional levels, such as 3c+ and 4a-...

There will also be many discussions about the overload of numerous quirky symbols and icons to describe the characteristics of boulder problems. In Europe Sport Vertical, it initially takes some time to get the hang of the symbols and pictograms that are used, but in the end they are very handy to convey as much as possible information. For Fontainebleau Magique, it would have been better if the symbols were used less extensively. The biggest problem is that you can't remember where the quirky icons stand for, because there is no logical system behind them. For instance, there are seven symbols to describe whether you need a craspad or not for a problem, or if a problem is a highball or deathball. However, those seven symbols do not have any correlation in shape, color, text font, etc., making it virtually impossible to understand in a glance the characteristics of a boulder problem or circuit.

Notwithstanding these few drawbacks, Fontainebleau Magique is the best companion guide if you are not too familiar with all the areas of the magical forest, or are interested in climbing orange and blue circuits. The famous purple selection guide by Jo & Françoise Montchaussé and Jacky Godoffe contains some orange and blue circuits as well, but is rather out of date, and is not followed up by a guide containing circuits for intermediate level boulderers. To show you that Fontainebleau Magique has a very good selection of circuits, you will find a list with all the presented circuits below.

Orange circuits:

Blue circuits:

Red circuits:

Order now for € 31,50 excluding shipping costs.

General information about the guide:

ISBN-10: 1-873665-81-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-873665-81-7
pages: 336
size: 210mm x 151mm
circuits with topos: 50
boulders: over 2500
photos: about 270
languages: English and French
price: € 31,50 excluding shipping costs
author: David Atchison-Jones

Order now for € 31,50 excluding shipping costs.

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