Bouin finishes Hanshallaren trip with third ascent of Change (F9b+)

• Wednesday 10th August 2022

Seb Bouin made the third ascent of Change (F9b+) to complete his epic trip to Flatanger.

Arriving in Flatanger in early July Seb wasted no time building his tick-list. His first route was the second ascent of Adam Ondra’s route Iron Curtain (F9b); Seb climbed that in just 14 attempts over five climbing days. Using kneepads, Seb thought Iron Curtain was F9a+ rather than the F9b which Adam Ondra gave it after his no kneepad first ascent in 2013. Moving swiftly on, Seb then dispatched the second ascent of the second pitch of Thor’s Hammer (F9a+) before doing the first pitch of Change (F9a+). Like Stefano Ghisolfi who made the second ascent of Change last year, Seb also used kneepads for his ascent. By Seb’s estimation this made the first pitch easier and worth F9a+ rather than F9a+/b without kneepads. Then, Seb turned his attention to the first ascent of the massive 130m Nordic Marathon (F9b/+). Such was the state of play when we posted on July 31^st – click here to read more detail about these ascents.

Since then, Seb has returned to Change. Having repeated the first pitch Seb focused his attention on the second pitch. By August 3rd Seb had managed to repeat the second pitch. Here’s what he said about that pitch:

“P2 is still quite hard, and make the route really spicy if you come from the ground. It could be a hard F9a.

I was thinking this one quite physical and endurance.

It's more about short resistance.

Straight after the first anchor come the main problems.

There is a first traverse to the left quite hard, followed by a serious crimpy gaston problem.

Then, there is a third crux quite hard to arrive in to an F8b+ route.”

Seb had two issues however; firstly his trip was coming to an end and secondly a month of climbing in the Hanshallaren cave was taking its toll on his body.

With only four more days left to send both pitches on Change, it started badly for Seb:

“Day 1, the conditions were terrible. It was humid and wet. A lot of the key holds were wet. I decided to not climb and wait for the next day.

Day 2, it was still humid, and key holds were a bit dryer, but the humidity didn’t give me confidence. I decided to try the route anyway. It was difficult to wait much longer, knowing I had to leave soon. I passed the first pitch, rested a lot before pitch 2. Then passed the first traverse crux on Pitch 2, and fell straight after that on the second crux. The holds were really humid and almost wet.”

Conditions in the Hanshallaren can be fickle; the wind direction is especially important if the humidity is high as clearly it was.

Things were a little better for Seb’s penultimate day and he describes how things unfolded:

“Day 3 (August 5th), I still felt really tired from my attempt on the previous day, and I didn't sleep well during the night. I wasn’t planning to climb – I wanted to wait until I felt ready. I went up to the cave to check out conditions and belay my girlfriend on her route. The conditions were exceptional! I was torn in my mind. Should I try it and take advantage of the conditions? Or should I wait until I knew I was fully recovered? I finally decided to try the route. I was literally flowing through the holds, due to the good conditions. It was so much different than the day before.”

I am happy to say that I made no mistakes and felt the belief that I could make it to the end, and I did! I am not usually a ‘last day, last try’ kind of guy, but this time it happened 🙂

I climbed the route with kneepads, like previous ascensionist Stefano Ghisolfi.”

Seb has promised to post more about the grades of the various routes but earlier today he wrote reflecting on the trip saying:

“It wasn’t just about sending.

It's a whole process where joy, happiness, emulation and motivation, relationship, lifestyle, discovery, and meetings, play a big role.

This feeling when life seems easy and simple brings me peace.

And with this peace, I no longer feel the pressure and stress of my objectives.

Surfing on the positive wave is something rare. I learnt this with the time. It's easy to fall off the wave.

And it's way harder to build again the positive circle bringing to you that bit of peace, simplicity, craziness, luck, and audacity that needed to succeed.

It's rare to have everything coming perfectly together and find myself surfing on the top of the wave.

The fine line between success and failure is sometime small. And the tiniest mistakes can cause you to fall.

Everything was perfectly in harmony to make the successes of this trip happen.

My physical shape, the perfect projects (not too hard, just on the good limit), the best partners, the conditions, and the luck.

I am so grateful to live such beautiful moments.

This kind of trip is not happening that often in a climber’s life.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, near of far, to this one.

It was amazing to find a new project following every time the previous one.

Last year was so hard for me, personally and for climbing. I was projecting so hard in DNA, and failing again and again.

Experiencing the reverse of this trend is cool.”

Seb has now returned to France, his 5-6 week trip to Flatanger over. Without a doubt it’s one of the best trips any climber has had to Hanshallaren. It may seem a little odd for a climber to write that doing multiple routes between F9a+ and F9b+ are – in his words - “not too hard”. Remember though that Seb spent the entire year last year projecting both Bibliographie at Ceuse and his own route DNA at Ramirole before finally completing the first ascent of DNA in May this year after nearly 200 days effort!. Hardly surprising then, that he suggested DNA felt like F9c. (Click here to read about his first ascent of DNA.)