Leo Bøe spends over an hour battling out Thor's Hammer (9a)

Leo Bøe 🍄, who in 2023 has sent his first six 9a's, has done Thor's Hammer (9a+) at Flatanger. "Didn’t expect the send at all !! 7th day on, and I was in Flatanger only for a week to work the moves. I tried the route some seasons back and never got past the bouldery start. On my final try today, however, I did the boulder and never fell afterwards… I only went through the upper part once this trip and mixing up betas got me super pumped! I was fighting into the jug before the sloper rail and needed 35 mins to recover… Never have I suffered this much for a send and 1hr30mins after leaving the ground I clipped the chains! Big thanks to my belay bro Arne! 🤜💥🤛"

Can you tell us more about that marathon ascent?
I was tired from climbing many days in a row, but my friend insisted I give it some tries from the ground as good training. I didn’t have a good rest day for a week since I was so psyched to be in the cave. As a result, the climb turned out way longer as I was forced to rest more between each boulder.

I had to fight my way into this last rest. Knowing the final part and how people usually fall there was scary, especially since I only did the sloper rail once on this trip. My beta was all a mess in my head… If you do a wrong shuffle along the slopers you might get too pumped and slide off. This was not an option for me as I was leaving Flatanger [that day]. Therefore I stayed there for 35 minutes to make sure I was as rested as I could be. You get a pretty good kneebar combined with a heel-toe cam, but it’s painful and tough cause the foot is slopey. The left kneebar is not no-hands, but is very useful to recover the right leg. If I was to fall on the last couple of moves after being on the wall for 1hr25 min I would be heartbroken… Luckily I didn’t!