Seb Bouin repeats Move Hard (9b) at Flatanger in Norway

On Monday 24th of July, French climber Sébastien Bouin made the third ascent of Adam Ondra’s Move Hard in the Hanshelleren Cave at Flatanger, Norway. Established in 2017 by Ondra while working what would become the world's first 9c, Silence, Move Hard is a linkup which connects the start of Move (9b/+) which the second crux of Silence (9c). Move Hard essentially avoids the main crux of Silence and has seen one repeat since Ondra’s first ascent, namely from Stefano Ghisolfi in 2022.

Bouin repeated Move on his first visit to the cave in 2019, and after his redpoint of Move Hard on Monday he commented: "Move Hard or Silence Easy? We arrived in Norway a week and a half ago and my main goal was to try "Project Big". The videos of Jakob and Adam from last year motivated me a lot to visit this route. I spent 6 days on "Project big" and managed to make some interesting progress on it, but I need more time for sure. Over the last week the conditions began to worsen, so I decided to shift my focus and try another route from Adam, "Move Hard". I would say this route has more in common with "Silence" than "Move", so could be called "Silence easy" too.

The line starts from "Move", and takes you through the very first crux, before turning right into "Silence" to do the second and third cruxes. Basically, you skip the main crux of Silence. It's a really good route combining multiple interesting cruxes. And it's a logical step to gain some confidence in crux 2 and 3 of "Silence".

My beta for "Silence" crux 2 is a little different from Adam and Stefano. I am taking the first crimp with my left hand after the rest. And reach for a right-hand sloper on the right. I then use a really bad knee bar to reach the normal right gaston, and then bring up my feet. I don't think this is a game-changing beta for this route. It's quite different, but still hard. Adam did the first ascent just before sending "Silence", and Stefano made a repeat while he was also working "Silence". This route is fun, and even if I am not currently involved in the "Silence" process, I was psyched to try it. Let's continue the process."

Last summer at Flatanger Bouin made the third ascent of Change (9b+) shortly after having made the first ascent of Nordic Marathon (9b/+) and the first repeat of Iron Curtain.