This is the HARDEST CLIMB in the History of the World || Silence 9c

Hanssalaren in Flatanger is one of the most impressive rock formations there is. Until about 10 000 years ago this gigantic cave sat below sea level pushed down by the heavy ice. But then as the ice started melting it rose from the deep, washed out by the seawater over thousands of years. There has been several findings in the cave that suggest it has served a different purpose. Vikings and generations even before then most likely used this cave to seek shelter from the It wasn't until about a thousand years later the cave was used for what it's famous for today. Climbers first visited this cave in the 90s but left most of it unclimbed. And there's been rumors about this cave for about as long as I've been climbing for. In 2011 I decided to go there and finally check it out with a group of in total six climbers. It completely blew our minds. The sheer size of the cave is hard to comprehend. I told Adam Ondrej about this cave a bit later and convinced him to go check it out. And the rest is history. Climbing history. Adam put up the first 9b plus in the world. Change. And later silence. The world's first 9c. I've wanted to come back here for a long time to show you this magical place. So when I heard that Stefano Ghisolfi and Alex Magos, two of the best climbers in the world, were there I decided it was time to finally revisit this place to see what it has become and to get the chance to try the world's hardest route myself. Before we start this video I want to present to you a very exclusive offer. Right now if you buy my favorite pants ever, the Harness Pants, you get a free Bowler Heads tee. We just got this new black color and organic cotton. You don't even need a discount code or anything. You just go to the web shop, you add the Harness Pants and the Bowler Heads tee and the code will be added automatically. The best way to support this channel is by wearing Rungna. Now I hope you enjoy this video. Oh jeez that's a crazy muscle. Oh yeah you can do it too. Nice. Oh wait but you did it with one arm in a video I remember. Yeah but that was just film tricks. Is this where you guys normally warm up? And the first day I didn't warm up at all. I went up there and did like one 6b and then jumped on change. Bad idea. Yeah. And that's when I like pulled my back on the first move. I usually warm up here a bit and then jump straight on silence. Jump straight on silence. It's the plan. So for those of you who don't know, Adam put up this wall just so that he could have somewhere to warm up and then he just left it here with all the holds. And you Alex, you came straight from the Olympics right? Pretty much yeah. Oh man I watched you the foot pop. That was just heartbreaking because you looked so strong up until there. I was like okay he's gonna get really high. I know that's exactly what it felt like. I was like okay there's nothing that can throw me off now. I felt so good. Have you tried silence? No I've not. You're trying change at the moment right? Well I just started pretty much yesterday. So Stefano's trying 9c and you're trying 9b+. You're gonna try both? I'm trying 9c too by the way. Okay. You're only trying 9b+. I have to work my way up to the higher grades you know. You can't just roll up in flat hangar and start with the hardest thing. Like you have to prove yourself worthy of trying 9c. How long have you been trying silence now Stefano? This is my third season. I watched your last video. It looks like you're getting closer. Yeah I did the whole crux. The goal I have now is to climb both cruxes and then maybe start from the ground. Right now we're just in the barn. We're gonna warm up a little bit here and then we're gonna hike up. And then Stefano and I are gonna get on silence which is just crazy. I don't think I'm gonna be able to even hang off those holds. But yeah it's gonna be interesting to try it. See how hard it is. How hard it really is. I think approximately around 9c. You think? Yeah. Educated guess. You guys are not so strong in crimps I've heard. Absolutely not. Poor little mortal weaklings. Let's switch to this. And then the white with the black. And then the sloper. The crimp. The long crimp. And then just the blue. Should I try it first? Show you guys how to do it? Yes please. Absolutely. Yeah I think I maybe said something very hard that I can't do myself. Magnus was already here yesterday practicing the volleyball for the whole day. Now he's pretending like he forgot it. Lap 17. Then I said blue right? I look chill. If I could do whatever I wanted. Yeah you can't though. I can't. I have to climb it the way it's intended no? This is a little bit awkward with the feet. It's super awkward. But I'm allowed to use this no? There you go. No need for holds. What would you grade that? 7c. 7c wow. 7b. I would say how Stefano climbed it. So easy. What would you say? 7b. What would you say the crux of silence is? 7b plus. It's easier than this. All right let's go and try it. It's even bigger than I remembered it to be. All right so there is silence. Yeah it's there. Are you scared? I'm a little bit scared yeah. It is a bit intimidating. For me the first time here back two years ago was a bit intimidating. Yeah. I didn't know anything apart from like Adam's video. Yeah. And everything was like a mystery. And the routes are super hard, are super long. The cave is huge. So even from like from the parking seems. Yeah. Quite scary. But then when you get used to then it's kind of a normal climbing. Yeah. It's different from other crags for sure. All right so silence is the first 9c ever done. It was Adam Ondra who did the first ascent. I'll explain the route a little bit. Starts off with pretty easy climbing. When I say easy I mean like 8b, 8b plus. It starts in Nordic Flower and then it goes out left into what is the crux of silence. But there's actually a lot of climbing before the crux. Not many people know that but you still do like a 25 meter route before that. And the crux is supposed to be an 8c boulder. So after having done an 8b plus route you go straight into an 8c boulder. Then you get like a semi rest and then into another 8b boulder. And then there's like an 7c boulder or something at the very end. So it consists of many different parts. The main section is the 8c boulder. Because if you can do the 8c boulder you can do the route. So that is what Stefano is trying now. He's trying to focus on that part. And if he does that he's going to try to do longer sections. And eventually he's going to start from the bottom and climb to the very top. That's the goal. Do you have knee pads? Nope. All the routes I've done in here I've done without knee pads. Now they're like as important as climbing shoes. Really? Yeah. Oh my god. I'm like asking myself what the hell am I doing? Why am I trying the hardest route in the world? I never thought I would try this route. It's kind of cool. I don't think many people have tried it. I think also a lot of people wonder how it's actually like. Because you've only seen like those 9b plus 9c climbers try it. But you haven't seen someone like me try it. And I'm going to try to explain to you exactly how it feels and how the holds feel. Am I going to be able to hold the holds? Like put weight on them? I don't know. I remember the first time you cannot even understand how to hold them. Really? It's not like hard that you cannot hold but you need. Okay maybe if I train I can. I don't know like in which way I need to turn to hold these holds. When one of the strongest climbers in the world say that. That means it's really really hard. So I think it's like between 10 and 15 years since I tried this. Okay. This beginning. I just remember that the beginning it was always wet. Like the holds up there were always wet. Now it seems dry. So this is the first part of silence. It's like an 8b up until the crux. And actually fun fact this route was bolted when I was here the first time. I watched it being bolted by Laura Laporte who's also here. So it's one of the first routes in the cave. You have good footholds. And you put the knee bar there. Okay you can take. This is the hardest section of the first part. Yeah. She's getting my fingers warm. It's not exactly Italy huh Stefano? No no. That's why we're here now. That's why we're here. Not in Italy. So the 8b plus beginning I've done before. But that is 15 years ago. That's also the beginning of the Nordic flower which is an 8c. So I knew that part kind of. But at the same time I forgot most of it. It took a while to figure it out. And also on the bottom of it there's like a pretty tricky boulder. Yeah this part I remember being kind of awkward. Yes come on. This and go again. Nice. Oh I'm probably going to try to just continue a little bit from here. Because now it's not too hard. Come on. There's another good knee bar there. Oh this one I could get even without a knee pad. Okay you can take. You're probably the first person to try to climb it without knee pads. Yeah I take that as a personal victory. It's more bumpy than I remember it to be. I haven't done much lead climbing outdoors lately. Even though they're big holes it's like this steep. And it really tires you out. Okay climbing. Come on. It's called Nordic flower because of all the flowers sticking out. Okay so now it starts. This is this is the stuff. Now I rotate to silence. And then when I got to the crux I made sure I took a long rest. Because I wanted to be rested before the crux. So I lowered down and then drew more back up. I was like ready to try really hard. But I wasn't even able to try as hard as I wanted to. Because it's just so freaking hard. Every single move is a really hard boulder in itself. I was completely blind. Yeah it was on the on the left. So you've seen the cave by now. You know how big it is. We were all the way on top. And Alex was like down here trying change. It's a 90 plus. But we're pretty far apart. But we could watch him try it from where we were. That's the cool thing about Patong. It's like a big stadium. Where you can see all the stuff going on. Because the ground is following the climbing. So even though the climber is climbing for like 80 meters. You're still so close to the climber. You're a pretty good player for being a pro climber. Yeah. You know they say that the better the climber the worse it is at delaying. I know I saw some videos. I can see that he's holding the rope. I'm holding the rope. I always hold the rope. Oh I've been dying to feel this hold though. This pocket right here. I'm gonna feel it now. I always wondered how that is. Oh my god it's so much worse than I thought it would be. Yeah. That is such a bad hold. Holy crap that's so much worse than I thought it would be. Nice. Yeah go again all the way to the right. Yeah. And then yeah you move like this. And then you match this and match. Yeah perfect. From there you go to the pocket. Oh really wow. That is a big move. Nice. Okay take. Yeah. Not bad. That pocket oh my god. I always wondered how that pocket would feel. I thought it was gonna be a little bit of in-cut. But it's not in-cut at all. It's super sloppy but you kind of jam three fingers in like that. And you have to do it exactly right so that it sticks. These are the most powerful and hard moves. Okay climbing. Come on. Yes perfect. Right toe. Okay just go. Yes nice. Okay. You did very well. Yeah that was surprising actually that I could stick that. All right so cool though to feel these holds. And just kind of picture how it would be like to climb this. It's incredible to me to climb something like this. Some people might think that it's silly that I'm trying this. But I think it's kind of cool to get on something this hard. Just to see what it is. This is a piece of climbing history you know. I would have been a little bit careful if some of these holds could break. That happens sometimes. But I don't want to be the one who breaks any holds. But on this it's like just so solid. If I were to explain how this feels. It doesn't feel like a crack. It just feels more like a big pinch. Where you get a little bit of help on the pinky. Okay climbing. Go on. Yes yes yes yes. Nice good job. On a hard route like this there's like micro beta. It's like you can't be sloppy you know. You have to get everything super precise. All the foot holds. All the hand holds. You need to hold it in the exact same spot. Getting the crystals of the rock in the same angle and same position. Like it's just so technical. As well as just being very physically hard as well of course. Did you see Pete Whittaker try it? Oh yeah. I think he was trying from. He was trying from here yeah. Yeah and then I think he did all the part with even other foot jams. Yes yes come on. Nice. I'm like holding the jaw and I still can't do it. Where's that mono? Is this the mono you get afterwards? This is like really. Here it seems like my finger could be stuck. I don't think Adam would get his sausage fingers in this. I think it's that one that I use. Is there a tick mark? Yeah there's a tick mark. Okay so it's that one. Really Adam gets his fingers into this? I think for this I would need of course a lot of training but also other shoes. There's no way they're gonna stick now. So I think I'm just gonna continue. Pull up to the next jaw and continue. It's like never ending. There's so many moves on these like four meters. That's crazy. And they're all like hard. Come on. Yeah go campus from there. Yes nice. Left foot high. On the crack. Very high a bit a bit lower. Where you have yeah there. And then you match. Okay I take. Yeah. That is hard too though. Everything is. Come on. Yeah there. This is way one knee pad I guess. Okay take. That's the end of the first crux and then you get spit right into another crux. Come on. Left heel. Yes. Go to the undercling. Nice. Oh god that's such a weird undercling. This is like a hard boulder session. It's not over. Yeah I know. I believe you. It could be around 80 plus boulder I think. Adam said 8b. No he's saying 8a plus. Can't trust any of them. The second crux. Don't get me started on the second crux. That was just so much harder than I thought. Adam said 8b boulder. Stefano says 8a plus. You have to do that after first having done an 8b plus route into an 8c boulder. And then to do another 8b boulder. Like I don't understand how that's physically possible. I can't even like pull on to the. Get to the position. I don't understand. This is so awkward. And then you grab this as an intermediate. This is like a nothing hold. Yeah. Left foot a bit higher. Or you can even go with the left hand. Yeah there. Perfect. Undercling. Yes. Nice. Just trust it. Yeah. Heel. Nice. Then high on the crack. There yeah. Match. Go right. There is a similar one to the right. There. Match again. Then there's a good one. Yes. No just take. Oh my god. Now I'm exhausted. Makes sense. You know what? I think you should just lower me. Oh god. Yeah but good job. You did some of the moves. Yeah I did some of the moves. Yeah. I feel like this is the type of stuff that I could try it for two months and I wouldn't improve on. You know. I feel like this could be very frustrating. Yeah it's frustrating. But no I think it's like improving. It's especially at the beginning. It's you can improve fast. Yeah. Then now I'm at the point that it's hard to improve more. Yeah. To adjust some micro details. Do you feel like it's fitness at all or? Not really. You have the fitness. Yeah I think I have the fitness to climb it. Just about condition and not making mistakes and. Right. So that was my attempt at the world's hardest route. And I'm really curious if Stefano was impressed with me. So after seeing me climb. Was that like yeah you expected on the route? I saw a few climbers try silence last year. It was Jakub Schubert. After big he tried silence. Sean Rabotut tried it. Domen Skovic tried it. And I think you were there actually. It was not much different from them. And from me the first time I tried it. Silence is not just the hardest route. It's also probably the weirdest. Yeah. So the feelings on the first go are really weird. Just you don't know how to climb it. On the Nami Places the first time you try you feel it's super hard. But possible. And on silence it feels just impossible. So do you get nervous now before an attempt? Not really now. No. Because you're not starting from the ground? Not starting from the ground. Yeah from the ground I think it would be very nervous. Yeah. I think a lot of people don't understand what is so nerve-wracking. They probably think that you're afraid of falling or something. But it's the performance right? You don't have many attempts on these routes. If you waste one it could be maybe your last one. These are like old-fashioned shoes. These are for crack climbing. So you need to climb with that shoe the whole way then? Yeah and this is hard because this is like hard. Yeah. You don't really feel anything under the shoe. But it's crucial for the crack. So now he's just gonna jumar up and then try it from up there. That is where the crack starts. So now I'm gonna try the second part. Okay. Which is the weirdest. That was good. You made it look really easy that time. If I can I try to climb to the top. Nice. So this is the first time watching Silence live. And watching Stefano climb on something that hard. I gotta say he's way closer than I thought it would be. He makes that crux sequence seem so easy. And just doing it straight into the other crux as well. And then all the way to the top. I feel like he's pretty close to be honest. I can't believe you just did like an 8ft boulder. Ah nice. Okay this is the top. You just dropped? I just jumped. Yeah yeah cool. So on the first attempt I start like this with this hold. And now I'm gonna try to start from this position. And that's gonna make a big difference. It is a big difference. It's just like actually two moves. This and this. But then it makes a lot of difference. Come on. Nice. So on this attempt he just started like two moves lower. And you can see how much of a difference that makes. Now it just looks so much harder. And it's only like two moves lower. So that means those moves are probably really really hard. Venga. Come on. Yes go on. Come on. Okay climbing. Nice. Come on man. You got it. Yeah nice. Come on Stefano. It was better. Feeling better now? Yeah felt a bit better. Yeah it seems like you have the upper crux really dialed. Yeah the upper crux is good. Yeah I tried it a lot the last year so. Yeah it's like easy for you. Not easy. It's still possible to fall. Yeah from here it looks super easy when you do it but. Yeah but still from here just. You can see from just a few moves below then it's completely different. There is a good rest but still not on the sofa. It's still hanging upside down. Yeah come on. Yeah nice. Oh god that's so crazy. Nice you got it man. How are you cruising that? Come on man. Allez come on man. It's crazy how much of a difference it makes when you just start one move in. Yeah makes a lot of difference. What would it mean to do this route for you? How do you celebrate? I would be happy. I would be satisfied for this achievement. I really want to climb this route. So there you have it. I hope you guys enjoyed this video even though it was a bit different than usual. I really enjoy making these outdoor climbing videos and this was such a cool experience. Leave a comment if you want me to check out any other crags and I'll see you next time.