The World’s Next 5.15+? Seb Bouin Talks His Flatanger Project

Seb Bouin was recently projecting a new hard sport route at the famous Hanshelleren cave in Flatanger, Norway. The line links Move 5.15b/c into Thor’s Hammer 5.14d/15a. Adam Ondra made the FA of Move back in 2013, suggesting a grade of 5.15b/c. Bouin repeated the line in 2019 and suggested a grade of soft 5.15c, believing the route to be harder than Ondra’s Change 5.15c. Thor’s Hammer was established by Ondra in 2012, with grade assessments ranging from 5.14d to 5.15a.

Move Integral is a more difficult version of Nordic Marathon 5.15b/c, a link-up Bouin FA’d in 2022. Nordic Marathon links Nordic Plumber 5.14b into Thor’s Hammer 5.14d/15a, creating a monster 430-foot pitch. Move Integral sees Nordic Plumber 5.14b being replaced by Change 5.15b/c, making the link-up substantially more difficult. Once climbed, will it be 5.15c or 5.15d?

For his Norway trip this year, Bouin had three projecting options: Ondra’s Silence 5.15d, Jakob Schubert’s B.I.G. 5.15d, or the unclimbed Move Integral project. He gave three tries on B.I.G. but realized the crux holds were too wet for productive projecting. He next tried the Move Integral project, and made quick progress.

“As I felt good on it, I quickly tried from the ground,” said Bouin on Instagram. “On my third climbing day, I fell on the last crux of the whole route (80m of hard climbing). I was really surprised to get that high so quickly. Passing Move, which is already [5.15b/c], doing cruxes one and two of pitch 2, and then falling not too badly on crux 3 on my third climbing day was a performance in itself for me. After this attempt, I was kind of on a high for almost two hours. It was so long and intense.

“I did Move on the edge. I didn’t remember the tricks from before. I was almost falling on every hard move. But somehow, it worked. I was totally done after that, but the power came back after a few minutes. Crux by crux, I was feeling okay. This effort could already be a good [5.15c]. I was psyched about trying this line during the trip.

“However, I couldn’t manage to return to that point afterward. The route is so long that my power drained really quickly after a few days of trying it. I tried to train, which helped a bit, but I know I have to take breaks when trying such a long route. The conditions were also quite bad for almost 10 days (humid/wet on the last pitch). I had to skip a few climbing days. So, I decided to take a break from this project and train for a few days. It’s the first time in my life I’ve done that, and I’m interested to see if it works. To be continued…”

You can watch Bouin climb Move 5.15b/c and Nordic Marathon 5.15b/c in the two videos embedded below.

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Seb Bouin on Move 5.15b/c

Seb Bouin on Nordic Marathon 5.15b/c