France : Languedoc-Roussillon

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France : Languedoc-Roussillon covers the extensive and fertile climbing area west of Haute Provence. The areas covered largely surround the beautiful Parc National des Cévennes, but also includes crags that are close to the cities of Nimes and Avignon. Some areas have been climbed on for generations; others are still very much in development, all will leave you hungry for more.

Categories: , Style: Location: FranceAuthors: Adrian Berry

The full guide is available on Rockfax Digital
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Starting in the family-friendly summer holiday destination of the Ardèche, the guide promises a tour of the very best crags in the region. The next stop is in the Gorge du Tarn, a highly acclaimed recent addition to France’s portfolio of perfect crags, here you can choose from the never-ending stamina tests in the Tarn, the occasionally traditionally protected multi-pitch adventures of the Jonte, and the various high-quality offerings of the Dourbie. Moving south, we cover Thaurac, for its collection of fine lower grade single and multi-pitch climbs, then pause for some fine ‘old school’ adventure at Hortus. Moving back East, it’s not far before we can pay our respects to Claret, Russan, and Seynes, each with its individual style, breath-taking quality, and lifetime supply of routes. Finally we end our tour at the well-developed crags surrounding Avignon, including the legendary Orgon which covers the range of difficulty from grade 4 to 9.

The Ardèche
Chaulet Plage, Mazet Plage, Actinidias, Le Cirque des Gens, Les Branches

The Tarn Area
Gorge du Tarn, Gorge de la Jonte, Le Boffi, Cantobre

Thaurac Area
Thaurac, Hortus, Claret

The Gard
Seynes, Russan

Massif des Alpilles
Mont Gaussier, Mouriès, Orgon
Published

November 2011

Authors

Location

ISBN

978-1-873341-62-9

Rockfax Number

Fax35

4 reviews for France : Languedoc-Roussillon

  1. Matt Heason

    Last summer we went to the Ardeche with some friends for a family camping holiday. It was pre-school age for the kids so we went in September and were blown away by the area. It was stunning. Great campsites in great locations literally next to the cliffs. Whilst we were there the author of this new guide from Rockfax was staying at the same place researching for this guide. I’ve known Adrian for a long time so we gladly helped him out with his research. He was taking it seriously – he even had an inflatable canoe to navigate the rivers and was happy to ferry us across at times when the levels were excitingly high. As a result I can say that the Ardeche region of the guide has had a fair amount of input other than Adrian’s which I think is a good thing for a guidebook. His approach to this and his other guide to the neighbouring region Haute Provence, has been to post a message on the climbing forums at UKClimbing inviting people to join him at key areas to voluntarily help out with the research of the guides. A great idea. He gets help with managing the volume of work and a bit of companionship at the same time – I rather suspect it can be a lonely labour of love writing guidebooks at times.
    This guide covers the following crags, many of which I have never previously heard of, such is the wealth of amazing climbing in France. At 376 pages it’s a mighty tome, and also testament to the volume of rock the French have – remember, this is only a selective guide! Although it is a sport climbing guide, there being little trad climbing in the area, there is reference to both bouldering and deep water soloing (at least in the Ardeche region), both of which we did and enjoyed as distractions on ‘rest days’. I shan’t comment on the general format. It is Rockfax and thus includes some basic introductory pages in foreign languages, the normal icon-based classification of both crags and routes making choosing where to do and which routes to attempt a doddle. It’s full of clear colour topos and has a decent amount of inspiring photos mainly taken by Adrian himself. One thing which I noticed and approve of, is GPS coordinates for all the parking areas. Very handy. A decent piece of work and one which should encourage a barrage of Brits to visit the area. We did, and we had a ball, and that was without this guide.

    Read more on Heason.net

  2. Dr Bob Wilson

    This guide book title is misleading! There are no crags listed on the fantastic rough limestone of the Rousillon, Only crags in the Languedoc region are listed, You’ve definitely missed out by not including crags such as Vingrau, Tauteval crags, La Clape, all the crags in the Fenoulliet, Les Gorges de Pierre-Lys, Le Cardou etc etc.
    This book should be called France, Languedoc only!

  3. Paul Phillips – Rockfax

    Hi Bob. All the crags in the guide are in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France. Roussillon hasn’t existed as an area definition for quite some time.

    Thanks for the crag suggestions though, maybe they’ll make in it in the next edition.

    Regards, Paul.

  4. Dave Reeve

    Having been to some of the crags in this guide before and previously using local French guidebooks, I found this guide extremely useful, particularly in the Gorge du Tarn and Gorge du Jonte where the great colour photos and descriptions made it much easier to actually find the climbs than before! There were also some areas such as Orgon that I didn’t know about so I made the trip there and found it to be good too…

    Well done !

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