Is Flatanger, Norway, the best summer sport crag anywhere? The world’s strongest sport climbers seem to think so.
This summer, Stefano Ghisolfi sent two 5.14d’s and continued his multi-season siege of Silence (5.15d). Domen Škofic did two 5.14d’s and has been working in Move (5.15b/c). Norwegian local Leo Bøe sent three 5.14d’s in the cave. Seb Bouin was there trying the still unclimbed Move Integral. Alex Megos recovered from a disappointing Olympics and made quick work of Change (5.15b/c), Move, and Little Badder (5.14d), seconding Bouin’s earlier contention that Move, which Ondra gave the lesser grade, was harder than Change. Then Spain’s Jorge Díaz-Rullo, who spent the last two months in Norway, sent the same two routes as Megos and said he was not quite sure he agreed. For him, “Move was the same as Change,” he told Climbing, “maybe in a different style, more physical and less tricky, but I think they are on the same level: 9b/+ (5.15b/c).”
Díaz-Rullo is no stranger to hard routes or long projects. Prior to his Flatanger trip, he’d done nine 5.15b’s, including classics like First Round First Minute and El Bon Combat, and two 5.15cs: Alex Megos’s Céüse masterpiece, Bibliographie, and his own route, Mejorando la Samfaina, in Margalef’s La Finestra sector, which remains unrepeated. He sent Change after 15 days of effort and Move after 17—relatively quick ascents given that he logged 60 days and multiple seasons on Bibliographie (5.15c) and well over 100 days on the still-unclimbed Cafe Colombia project at La Finestra.
One thing that all of Díaz-Rullo’s hard ascents to date have in common: they were all on limestone. And mixing it up with Flatanger’s granite was “amazing.”
“The rock is perfect,” he said, “with all kinds of holds, and the routes are long and physical but also in a very technical style with knees, heels, toe hooks. You have to think a lot. Sometimes it’s harder to find your own methods than to send the routes.”
Though he had planned to try some warm up climbs, Díaz-Rullo began sampling both Change and Move immediately after arriving. “I thought it could be a good idea to have two projects in order to keep me fit and motivated,” he said, “so many days I tried both in the same session.”
But it wasn’t long before he decided to focus more on Change, since its bouldery nature made it more workable. (The fact that Move’s crux comes after nearly 50 meters of hard endurance climbing, he said, “meant fatigue from which I could not recover so fast for either Change or Move.”) But he was nearly defeated by Change’s famously morpho lower crux, trying the sequence over and over again “without stopping to consider different betas,” and occasionally finding himself “unhinged” by frustration. “If it wasn’t for my friends,” he admitted, “I might have given up and removed the quickdraws. Call it bad management or little experience, but many days that I invested in the route were useless and wasted.”
He was saved by some camaraderie.
Díaz-Rullo had finally figured out a method through the lower crux when Alex Megos came along and—in very Megos fashion—made quick work of the route, clipping the chains without ever falling on the tricky upper half. It made Díaz-Rullo realize that he was closer to sending than he’d thought, which gave him “a lot of motivation and confidence.”
“Now I was sure that, if I passed the first boulder, I could have a good chance to climb it directly to the top.”
Of course, when he finally linked the morpho crux from the ground, he felt immense pressure not to blow it. “In an hour-long attempt, with many good rests, you have a lot of time to think,” he said. “In fact, part of the difficulty on these routes is to stay focused and not give up, even if you are extremely tired.”
Díaz-Rullo’s battle with Move was “more psychological” than with Change—and it ultimately took him more attempts. It was mentally and physically exhausting, he said, to fall repeatedly on the top crux, and the route “made me experience an explosion of emotions: from motivation at the beginning (especially right after doing Change) to frustration about conditions, skin condition, and failed attempts. It drives me a little crazy to always fall on the final moves after climbing 50 meters.”
“The day of the send,” he said, “was one of those days when you can’t find an explanation for anything. The day began with the worst conditions, one of those days when you don’t know if you should go climbing or not. But little by little the wind started to come, and I decided to make a try, and I fell on the last hard move. We were about to leave the crag, but a last minute breeze made me think: Doesn’t it look like good conditions now? Will it be worth another try? Won’t I be too tired? What will tomorrow be like? Sometimes my head turns a thousand times before making a decision. But something inside me told me to go for one of those ‘training’ tries. I gave it all up for lost; I climbed without pressure; a fearless Jorge appeared: very tired but fast and efficient. The limit exists, and on this attempt, I experienced it in person.”
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