Saffres – The bolting

Some routes start with a severe boulder move, continuing in walking terrain, adding three variations to the run out end, crossing other route’s generic variations. On some point you can touch the bolt of a left and a right route at the same time. This feels very Pont-à-Lessy, just like the route numbering and the anonymous club equipers.

Sometimes there’s lots of bolts and suddenly there is none for several tricky meters, which is mostly labeled in Jingo Wobbly’s book as 747 transatlantic flight. A nearby authorized bivouac place allows to visit Saffres Airlines again in the morning, before moving on.

Saffres – Essay on sport climb route equiping

We climb a dozen of routes from 6a to Splendeur Sauvage, concluding rock equiping is not something to play with, just like surgery is not something for everyone immediately. Somewhere it's playing with lives. Sport climbers assume bolting is logic and safe and that you can commit, but that’s not true everywhere.

Pico putting the first bolt 6-7 meters high on Pilier Cromwell is thought-through and – if you know the route – very logic. But the mental parts we find in Saffres mostly did not make sense to us and make us wonder if the equipers were even close to being able to climb the routes.