“Go to the mountains” I was told, but there was a reason I didn’t listen and went to a forest far from the nearest mountain instead. Fontainebleau is a circus of like minded people enjoying a simple life, some come for just a day or two, some for a week and some stay for the whole season. It all depends on how much time they can find, maybe just a day trip from Paris, maybe they can squeeze a week off work or for some this is a lifestyle they have created where they work for three months a year and travel about climbing for the rest.

Each person is different and like always that makes it interesting.

Picture a little ever changing village visiting the forest, made up from those who have come from every direction around. We all arrive not knowing who our neighbours will be but we know we’ll find them and they know they’ll find us. Everyone helps everyone, supporting them on their projects, fixing each other's vans, sometimes cooking together and always sharing tales of the day's successes and failures of an evening.

It must be a confusing view for anyone looking down from above. Honestly, it probably seems confusing to many other people in this world. Why would you go and live in a forest just to get up rocks in ways other than the easiest? You don’t get to see a spectacular view from the top, however there is something quite wonderful about how much of a point you can make out of something so pointless.

But does anything have a point anyway?

I’m not convinced.

So we may as well make our own.

We were all brought here by the rocks but without the people I’m sure we wouldn’t stay. Both the people who are there at the present and those who were there before us. Those who first imagined and invented the sport, those who first climbed the boulders and named them, those who painted the first circuits that have developed into what they are today. Those who did good to the forest and those who did bad.

These people defined the culture of bouldering in this forest, and the culture of this little corner of climbing as it has bled out further to the sport. I’m not sure if they knew at the time and I’m not sure if we know right now if what we are doing is defining the culture for the future or not.

The forest is not just a forest, it’s a forest with a story.

That’s why I didn’t go to the mountains.

Jacob