Aurac Reunion continued: Ceuse

After a long scenic sleep (oops, I mean ride) in the boot of Matthieu's car, we arrived at the camping ground in Ceuse. As I found, the camping ground is actually at the base of the hill that the crag lies atop. This would mean, much to my delight, that we'd be walking for an hour to the crag rather than driving, and I would be able to start the days feeling a little tired, rather than somewhat dizzy and nauseous. After realising this, we proceeded to drive to the nearest city, Gap, to buy groceries for the next few days, and to sample the local croissants and pain au raisin. The rock at Ceuse is sweet steep limestone..., a little like siurana was but colder, and cooler.

Now we were at a sport climbing crag, and we all felt a little more at home than we had been in the tall cliffs of Verdon. The view was still spectacular, but this time, we had panoramic views of the alps, rather than spectacular views down to the river at the bottom of Verdon Gorge. The first climb of the trip for all of us was a 6a, hoping to dip our toes into the new water gently. Both Gary and I took a little dogging to reach to top, whereas Matthieu managed it clean. over the next few days we were to try progressively harder climbs, take a few falls, and reach the climax of the trip with a dirty ascent of a 7b. At the end of our third and final day at ceuse, we managed to flash a 6b, letting ourselves think that we had actually improved a little during the course of our stay.

The camping ground was sweet, completely climber-orientated, with warm enough showers, toilets with seats and paper(a rarity in these parts) and a barn to cook in, (complete with horses, farm machinery, and a small bouldering wall for the rainy days which we were luck enough not to experience. The elevation was somewhat higher, and the temperatures were consequently lower. It was still warm enough to make the climb up walking tracks to the crag a rather sweaty experience, and to be relatively comfortable at the crag as long as the sun wasn't hiding behind clouds.

The setting of the crag is spectacular, to say the least with views through the mist across the alps, and the occasional moment when the mist would lift and show us beautiful snow-capped mountains. The climbing was moderately difficult, Gary and Matthieu went hard, and took a couple of decent falls between them, I on the other hand, was being my usual lame self, chickening out and doing too much down climbing.. with one exception, when the down climb appeared more scary than the fall.

After leaving Ceuse, we headed for Lyon (another chance to sleep in Matthieu's boot), knowing that we'd all love to return to Ceuse, but also knowing that it may only be Matthieu who will have a chance.