Watch Seb Bouin do Hard FAs on French Alpine Limestone
Surprise, surprise, France has yet another barely-touched limestone mecca.
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Episode Three of Seb Bouin’s Hidden Gems YouTube series finds Bouin exploring La Mortice, a stunningly beautiful blue-and-white limestone crag high in the French Alps.
A relatively new crag, La Mortice still has significant new route potential—something that Bouin, visiting with Laurent “Lolo” Perez, the crag’s main developer, discovers in the film.
After sending several of the established moderates, Bouin points at an unbolted section of the wall. Lolo bolts it. An hour later, Bouin has done the first ascent of Hidden Gems, 5.14b. He then points at another line, and Lolo bolts it, too. Returning the next day, Bouin does the first ascent of Mythique, 5.14d.
Photos like this seem to imply that Mythique won’t be the crag’s sole 5.14+:
