The route
T.C.F. is a 7a (YDS 5.11d) sport route at Buoux in the Luberon region of Provence. Composed of an unusual sandy limestone riddled with pockets, Buoux was the epicentre of global sport climbing in the 1980s. Pocket-pulling trickery, like the "Rose move", was in vogue (and a whole generation of climbers learned about tendon injuries).
The context
In the summer of 1989 I "quit work" for the first time. A year early I had made a bad career move, swapping an easy and emotionally-unengaging job as a programmer for a slightly-better paid but stressful client-facing job with a start-up subsidiary of the same firm. Worse, the subsidiary's base was in Gants Hill, a depressing hell-hole deep in the suburban badlands of east London. I set my departure in motion by demanding a large pay rise that I was pretty sure would be unacceptable. My judgement was right although they tested my resolve by making a counter-offer that came very close to my number. (Ironically, a year later I was back there again, working freelance for about 50% more than the last salary they had offered me.)
Catherine and I had already planned a climbing holiday in the south of France. As I suddenly had time on my hands, I decided to drive out ahead of her. I don't recall whether I had actually envisaged doing this alone but close to my departure date I found a partner: at the Mile End climbing wall someone called "Mo" had pinned up a note asking whether anyone could drive him to Verdon.
Mohit was still in his teens, visiting Europe from India and - impressively - somehow surviving on a budget close to zero. We meandered south over four or five days, checking out various cliffs around Dijon and in the Vercors and camping discreetly at various roadside spots. However, once we reached Verdon we realised that we had been wasting time with those lesser cliffs, as the gorge was so much more inspiring. A few days later I drove down to Nice to meet Catherine's flight. On the way back to Verdon, we had some drama when a tire blew out on a lonely road during a thunderstorm. I had never changed a wheel before and struggled accordingly. Catherine was not impressed.
Over the next couple of weeks, we alternated time between Verdon and Buoux, with various combinations of people including Mo and some London climbing friends. I was more drawn to Buoux as the climbing was predominantly single-pitch and more of a pure exercise in difficulty than the committing multi-pitches in Verdon. Also it was hard to escape the summer heat on Verdon's big open walls.
At Buoux, Catherine and I spent a couple of nights at the fabulous Auberge de Seguins, which is directly under the cliffs. The diary records the price as being about £15 per night, which must have seemed a good deal even then.
Most of us were still learning about steep limestone technique, French sport grades and the redpoint style. As far as I recall, we rapidly gave up trying to compare the local grades and British grading. More than any other factor, we found the new element of sport climbing to be managing the forearm pump. 'Ledge-shuffling" on British trad routes never felt so sustained.
Routes up to about 6b (YDS 5.10+ or low 5.11) seemed to go down reasonably easily. 6c was more of a challenge and needed a few tries. Beyond that was the magic grade of 7a (YDS 5.11d). I really wanted to climb one. Looking around the options at Buoux, T.C.F. seemed a good candidate. The route is not too long, maybe 25m or so, and follows an obvious line on pockets of various sizes.
The ascent
T.C.F. took me two or possibly three days - the diary isn't specific. Successive days, for sure, as we had yet to really understand the importance of rest. Near the start is a distinct crux move - a long throw between big spaced pockets. Initially it felt too far but with more effort and precision I started latching it. After that, I assumed success would follow quickly. Instead I found that the "easy" climbing higher up became prohibitively hard with pumped arms. I had to refine the sequence and get more efficient. Then start dealing with the mental strain of making repeated attempts. All of which would later seem like a blueprint for every redpoint siege subsequently, but it felt very novel at the time. In some ways my experience on Milk Blood three years before was similar but T.C.F. was steeper and more sustained, and of course, purely on bolts.
On my redpoint burn, I found myself having that out-of-body experience, detachedly watching myself climbing, that some people call "flow state" (which, ironically, I have not experienced many times since). So began a mild addiction to sport climbing that I still have almost thirty years later ...
Subsequent ascents
I have been back to Buoux five times since 1989. Twice in 1990 then once in 1992, 1999 and 2004. The diary records various re-encounters with T.C.F. but no actual clean ascents. I guess that my excuse would generally have been that I was focused on other routes. For example, the beautiful exposed face of Les Diaments sont Eternaux (7a), the big roof Camembert Ferguson (7a) above T.C.F., the amazing pillar of Rose de Sables (7a) and the pumpy then slopey No Man's Land (7a+). By 2004 I had also become a father. The diary records some drama that may be familiar to other climbing parents: "... had to leave as L had wet trousers [from] having a poo ... had to lower L down approach scramble wearing my underpants!"
Aside from the climbing, the Luberon region is a gorgeous part of France. Less obviously spectacular than the Mediterranean coast or the Alps, but also less touristy and "bling". I especially liked Bonnieux, a hill village of spiralling cobbled streets and terraced stone houses with big views west toward the Rhone valley. Inevitably we developed fantasies of owning property there and - equally inevitably - did nothing about it, not least as in the early 1990s few of us had much money. I remember on the second trip in 1990 that Catherine and I visited a Brit climber, John Hart, who had actually bought a small place east of Apt near Buoux. But he was a noted over-achiever who was managing to combine careers as a full-time doctor and art gallery owner, as well as being one of Britain's strongest climbers at the time. These days Brit climbers owning property in European climbing areas, or even building lives in those sorts of places, are a much more common phenomena. I flirted with the idea of the south of France or Catalonia as a relocation option in 2012, when we moved from the UAE to Squamish. I don't think it would have worked but ...
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| Turbo Cibi Facho: no I don't know what it means either |
The context
In the summer of 1989 I "quit work" for the first time. A year early I had made a bad career move, swapping an easy and emotionally-unengaging job as a programmer for a slightly-better paid but stressful client-facing job with a start-up subsidiary of the same firm. Worse, the subsidiary's base was in Gants Hill, a depressing hell-hole deep in the suburban badlands of east London. I set my departure in motion by demanding a large pay rise that I was pretty sure would be unacceptable. My judgement was right although they tested my resolve by making a counter-offer that came very close to my number. (Ironically, a year later I was back there again, working freelance for about 50% more than the last salary they had offered me.)
Catherine and I had already planned a climbing holiday in the south of France. As I suddenly had time on my hands, I decided to drive out ahead of her. I don't recall whether I had actually envisaged doing this alone but close to my departure date I found a partner: at the Mile End climbing wall someone called "Mo" had pinned up a note asking whether anyone could drive him to Verdon.
Mohit was still in his teens, visiting Europe from India and - impressively - somehow surviving on a budget close to zero. We meandered south over four or five days, checking out various cliffs around Dijon and in the Vercors and camping discreetly at various roadside spots. However, once we reached Verdon we realised that we had been wasting time with those lesser cliffs, as the gorge was so much more inspiring. A few days later I drove down to Nice to meet Catherine's flight. On the way back to Verdon, we had some drama when a tire blew out on a lonely road during a thunderstorm. I had never changed a wheel before and struggled accordingly. Catherine was not impressed.
Over the next couple of weeks, we alternated time between Verdon and Buoux, with various combinations of people including Mo and some London climbing friends. I was more drawn to Buoux as the climbing was predominantly single-pitch and more of a pure exercise in difficulty than the committing multi-pitches in Verdon. Also it was hard to escape the summer heat on Verdon's big open walls.
At Buoux, Catherine and I spent a couple of nights at the fabulous Auberge de Seguins, which is directly under the cliffs. The diary records the price as being about £15 per night, which must have seemed a good deal even then.
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| Auberge des Seguins (photos taken in 1999) |
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| Me on Pepsicomane (6b) in 1989. Scan from a damaged print. |
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| Climber on T.C.F. © unknown |
T.C.F. took me two or possibly three days - the diary isn't specific. Successive days, for sure, as we had yet to really understand the importance of rest. Near the start is a distinct crux move - a long throw between big spaced pockets. Initially it felt too far but with more effort and precision I started latching it. After that, I assumed success would follow quickly. Instead I found that the "easy" climbing higher up became prohibitively hard with pumped arms. I had to refine the sequence and get more efficient. Then start dealing with the mental strain of making repeated attempts. All of which would later seem like a blueprint for every redpoint siege subsequently, but it felt very novel at the time. In some ways my experience on Milk Blood three years before was similar but T.C.F. was steeper and more sustained, and of course, purely on bolts.
On my redpoint burn, I found myself having that out-of-body experience, detachedly watching myself climbing, that some people call "flow state" (which, ironically, I have not experienced many times since). So began a mild addiction to sport climbing that I still have almost thirty years later ...
Subsequent ascents
I have been back to Buoux five times since 1989. Twice in 1990 then once in 1992, 1999 and 2004. The diary records various re-encounters with T.C.F. but no actual clean ascents. I guess that my excuse would generally have been that I was focused on other routes. For example, the beautiful exposed face of Les Diaments sont Eternaux (7a), the big roof Camembert Ferguson (7a) above T.C.F., the amazing pillar of Rose de Sables (7a) and the pumpy then slopey No Man's Land (7a+). By 2004 I had also become a father. The diary records some drama that may be familiar to other climbing parents: "... had to leave as L had wet trousers [from] having a poo ... had to lower L down approach scramble wearing my underpants!"
Aside from the climbing, the Luberon region is a gorgeous part of France. Less obviously spectacular than the Mediterranean coast or the Alps, but also less touristy and "bling". I especially liked Bonnieux, a hill village of spiralling cobbled streets and terraced stone houses with big views west toward the Rhone valley. Inevitably we developed fantasies of owning property there and - equally inevitably - did nothing about it, not least as in the early 1990s few of us had much money. I remember on the second trip in 1990 that Catherine and I visited a Brit climber, John Hart, who had actually bought a small place east of Apt near Buoux. But he was a noted over-achiever who was managing to combine careers as a full-time doctor and art gallery owner, as well as being one of Britain's strongest climbers at the time. These days Brit climbers owning property in European climbing areas, or even building lives in those sorts of places, are a much more common phenomena. I flirted with the idea of the south of France or Catalonia as a relocation option in 2012, when we moved from the UAE to Squamish. I don't think it would have worked but ...
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| How it might have been - Leo in the Luberon, 2004 |
