Seb Bouin completes Silence variation, Move Hard (9b)

Seb Bouin has repeated Adam Ondra's Move Hard (9b) at Flatanger. Seb has now redpointed a dozen routes graded 9b to 9c, out of which seven are FA's. (c) Clarisse Bompard

"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" [variation] 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 FA 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.”

Project Big was bolted by Adam Ondra in 2013 and both he and Jakob Schubert have been working on it. Here is Ondra's documentory video of the close to 70m route and here is Schubert's video, which features a solid effort. Aside from Silence, Bouin has effectively done all the other high-end routes in Flatanger, and also the FA of the 130m long Nordic Marathon (9b/+).