On recent trips to Fontainebleau I've been interested in hunting out hidden gems rather than queuing up at Cuvier (for blocs, not whores). I suppose it's mostly down to my grumpy objection to social interaction with the general bouldering public.

I saw this slab called Les Nombrilistes on a video and it immediately went top of the tick list. It's a lone boulder 0.5km in a valley in between to villages, perfect. We popped in on the way back from Buthiers, but ran out of daylight quickly. It really is a beautiful boulder covered in a mental orange fungus, well worth finding.

The first rockover move is pure class, then you reach the scoop for feet. You tentatively walk along this steep scoop with no hands and then do a left foot step up on a hideously small edge, it is pretty scary the first time! Unfortunately it isn't over there, the hand rail isn't massive and there follows a typically unhelpful blank top out with your feet scrambling around on the fungus, which coincidently isn't the most grippy substance. My excuse for the sketchy top out is that I had a really sore wrist so failed to palm down effectively, although I know fine well that it would have still been a total battle.

I haven't done many 'hard' slabs in the forest, but this is undoubted top of the list so far. Perfect rock, brilliant moves and features. This video doesn't do it justice at all, but I suppose it's worth watching to see me try and impregnate the boulder at the top.