By the time we penetrated the forest’s first veil of treeline, the climbing ritual had already begun. Bright orange pads over shoulders. Everyday Mountaineering chalk bags clipped to belt loops. Heavily thumbed guidebooks in hand. We hit the trail and let Bas Cuvier swallow us whole - a dense sprawl of boulders, some tucked into shade, others glowing in crisp autumn sun. 

After changing into Everyday Mountaineering’s Everyday Pants, and pulling on Merino Craggy tees, we unfolded the pads like picnic blankets. And truthfully, that’s mostly how we used them for the first hour - sprawled out, inhaling cured French meats and fresh bread. Between chewing, groaning and snapping photos, we finally got going. A few lines were sent, several were not, but given the forest’s beauty, we didn’t really care either way. 

After giving Bas Cuvier’s classics a respectable seeing-to (and giving Everyday Mountaineering’s gear an even more thorough one), we wandered over to Cuvier Rempart. The forest here grew even quieter, the light changed, and the climbing, unsurprisingly, got much harder. Overhanging roofs, vertical slabs, holds so small they may as well have been hallucinations. Conversations transformed into short instructions and nervous pad-shuffling. Serious, but never grim. Everyday Mountaineering's gear genuinely had to pull its weight, and pull its weight it did: pants allowed full stretch, merino tees wicked away collective panic-sweat, and the bright orange pads were impossible to miss whenever we dropped a hold. 

As the afternoon cooled, we threw on knit hoodies and cardigans and made our way to the final stop on the itinerary - L’Éléphant. The ground turned sandy, the trees thinned, and the boulders took on shapes that felt as if they had been sculpted. The Elephant boulder sat looming - off-limits to climb, but impossible not to stare at. Fatigue had begun to gently takeover, so we amped up the comfort even further by slipping into Everyday Mountaineering’s fleece sets and resumed our position - sprawled across the pads once again. 

Eventually, after a few more earnest attempts on the French sandstone, climbing gave way to lying in the sand, listening to the low hum of other climbers, smelling pine and earth and chalk dust in the air. And it was here - somewhere between effort and complete stillness - that the everything about Everyday Mountaineering clicked into place. 

The brand may have been birthed amidst the chaos of New York City. But it made just as much sense - perhaps even more - here in Font. Physically we were 6,000km away, but mentally we felt even further. Almost as if we had been teleported to a forest planet where people used chalk as currency.  

And while Everyday Mountaineering’s gear functioned excellently on the rock, it equalled it for every activity off it: walking, eating, flicking through guidebooks, laughing at each other, sitting quietly, reading, dozing, repeating. Everyday moments, elevated by the fact we were sitting in one of the most special woodlands known to mankind. 

As the sun slipped behind the trees, we folded our pads, brushed sand off fleece sleeves and tramped back toward the car with tired limbs, chalk-stained hands and shoes full of forest grit. Fontainebleau didn’t measure the day by problems completed. Just like Everyday Mountaineering, it measured by the little things - quiet pauses, shared jokes, and the welcome moments of reflection that are increasingly harder to come across in today’s society. 

The trip proved that climbing is most definitely still in our bones. The only thing that’s changed since the Stone Age is that modern society expects us to wear clothes while we do it. And in that department, you’d be hard pressed to find better than the gear put out by Everyday Mountaineering.”