Is This The Most Beautiful Climbing Destination in the World¿

This is Flottanger, the best climbing destination in the world. This cave is climbing history and while I was here filming a video for the main channel trying the world's hardest route, I couldn't help but give you a little tour of this amazing place and even try something else, something a little bit more on my level. So you guys have been asking me when the highballer pens will be back and I am excited to announce that they are finally back and to celebrate that I'm going to give you guys a free mag dust with every purchase. You just have to go into the webshop, add the products and the discount code FREEMAGDUST. Thank you guys so much for supporting my brand and also my channel. Now I hope you enjoy today's video. So the approach is really beautiful. It's about 25 minutes and I feel like that's the perfect duration because that gets you warm but not tired. If it was any longer I would be exhausted from the hike. Oh man, it's so beautiful that cave. So this area is called Flatanger but the cave is called Hanshallen and the reason for that is because of Hans. You see the pillar there? That is, according to the story, Hans was a troll and he lived in the cave. If trolls are exposed to daylight they freeze and turn into stone and then Hans saw a troll woman, what do you call it? Troll girl out playing outside the cave and he really wanted to f*** the troll girl. So he went outside the cave and then he froze and that's him right there and that's why it's called Hanshallen. So this right here is Thor's Hammer. That's the first route I ever bolted and I think it's the only route that goes all the way out the cave. I remember I was here bolting it alone and every time I dropped a hammer or something I have to upstyle all the way down, get what I dropped and then all the way back up. That was like 15 years ago and then I remember Adam came and he texted me if it's okay that he tries it, Thor's Hammer, because I mean it was kind of my project since I bolted it but I gave it to him and he did it really quickly and called it 9a+. And now with the new generation of climbers everyone climbs with knee pads and stuff so now they call it 9a. This is actually the, I think it's the last hard route I did. I did this in 2015 I think and this right here is Silence, probably the most famous route in the world. It starts where that guy is climbing. You see how the ground is also following the route so even though you've climbed for like 30 meters when you get to here the ground is still only like 8 meters away. And then from here it's like the crux, the famous crux with the crack and where you go the other way. But I'm not going to talk too much about it because there's a main channel video where I try the shit out of this route so go and watch that instead. And then there's another 9b plus move which is also a Adam Andra route and that goes, also starts in the same start, the Nordic Flower start. So you still, you do the same like 8b intro and then just straight up it's a little bit left of Silence. But Thor's Hammer, that's definitely, I mean it's a king line and something that I'm pretty proud of. It was a lot of effort to bolt that. Like if it's flat you can just go from the top and put bolts from a like rappelling down. When it's steep like this you have to go ground up so you just like reach as far as you can with a big drill and put like and drill holes and put bolts. And as you can see like this route is probably like 150 meters long. I initially thought Thor's Hammer would be a multi-pitch. I thought it would be like the hardest multi-pitch in the world but no one's done it as a multi-pitch yet. And then this is Eye of Odin. It's also something we bolted when we kind of rediscovered the cave in I think it was 2010 or 11. Up until then there were just some routes out there and some routes there and then we went, we're like five people and we came into this cave and we all decided what the most obvious lines were. And Eye of Odin, the route that you see that guy climb right there that's one of the first routes that we bolted. You can see that there's like an eye and that's why it's called Eye of Odin. The black eye. I think it's 8c plus. It's also one of the first routes that I did in here. And then there's Project Big. That's up here 9c and that came later. I haven't even tried obviously. We actually thought about trying that for this video to compare big and change the two hardest routes in the world. There's one other 9c though DNA from Seb but it's pretty crazy this cave has like I think three 9b pluses and two 9c's. There's nowhere else in the world where there's like harder routes than here. It's the best place for really good climbers and right now there are so many good climbers here. I mean Alex is sitting down there. Stefano is here. Jorge the Spanish guy is here. And it's cool to see because it's like a big stadium. You know you can see all the climbing so close like that guy. Even though he's been climbing for so long he's like right next to us and we can see the holes and what he's doing. And it is like a competition. I don't know probably a lot of people watching this channel are not that familiar with outdoor climbing but it's like a competition to climb the hardest grades and to repeat the hardest routes. Hey how are you feeling today? You feel good? It's a bit harder today yeah. That's Stefano. So for projects like East Bronx Islands you need prime conditions and that's around 5-10 degrees a little bit of wind maybe. So really cold. I want to show you the last 9b plus change. Also an Adam Ondra route. Hey man how's it going? Yeah I'm gonna go for the flash go. How's change going? Okay I saw yesterday you were working that a lot. How close are you now though? Okay it's a bit spectacular. Yeah when you see it. So this right here is change. That's the first crux you know the corner where you see Adam do all those crazy shoulder moves. On long routes like this you want to split it up so you practice first one part and then another part. There's no need to try it from the bottom every time. You really want to make sure you know what to do at the top so that when you get through the bottom you know you can just send it. You can see Jorge is climbing in the top now. I think this is the second 9b plus in the world. After it's the first 9b plus in the world. Dura Dura is not the first. Change was the first okay. So the first 9b plus in the world and the first 9c plus in the world is in this case. Having traveled all the way to Flottenburg I knew I had to climb something. And after hearing rumors of an awesome newly bolted 8a plus line that even Stefano himself had fallen on. I knew that had to be my challenge. What you're watching now is me working the route. I'm pre-placing all the draws and checking out the moves before trying to red point it. Which felt like a good idea because right now flashing a hard 8a plus is very unlikely to happen. And also I wanted to place a rope so that my cameraman could film from the top. Okay tick. Now I think it might be this what I just climbed and it's a tiny bit higher. It's also hard to clip. The clip really, all the clips make you really tired. Yeah I think that is still going to be the red point crocs maybe. To tell you the truth I was feeling weirdly anxious after feeling out the moves. I knew I could do it but it had been so long since I tried something this hard. I definitely had some nerves that I haven't felt for a while. But I was still excited to give it my best go and luckily I managed to find a pretty good belayer. And you have tried this you said? Yeah. But yeah I failed. I tried it on the other side. You fell on the other side? Yeah. Okay I think I need to get on the other side of you. Yeah. I went through it pretty quickly so I'm not really sure what the bail is. Come on. Yes yes. Nice. Come on. Yes nice. Yes come on. The problem now is that I don't climb much lead so I can't rest. You know I used to be able to rest in positions like this but now I feel like I just get more pumped. So you can run? I have to run yeah. Just go. Nice. All right. Nice good job. That was perfect level Wes. I think that's actually a pretty cool route. Yeah it is. It's one of the few 8k pluses that I've not done in this cave. Not even tried before if not. I should also mention that there are a lot of easier routes in the cave. Even some cool like 7a or something. What would you say Stefano? I think from 7b you can enjoy a lot. Then from 8b you can enjoy everything. Yeah you can have a lot of fun on the easier route there. Maybe even 7a. 7a yeah. So not that 7a is easier or anything but like on a medium level. Don't want to offend the cameraman Sam. You're probably at the 7b level. Yeah come on. Sorry about that.