Flatlanders in Flatanger: August 20th - 25th, 2023

After what felt like a hectic time heading south from Torghatten, Nature gave us the perfect excuse to chill out for a bit at Flatanger - 2 days of solid-to-patchy rain. Flatanger is known for having, literally, the most difficult rock climb in the world, and most of the climbing there is centered around Hanshallaren, a cave carved out from remarkably sound and solid granite. The elite-level climbers still had plenty to stay busy with, since the hardest routes keep you out of the rain by climbing upside-down all around the cave, but anything we could even think of attempting was pretty well drenched.

The amenities at the campground were basic, though; we had a nice, dimly-lit but mostly-clean barn to hang out in, stocked with worn surplus recliners and a tired Ikea sectional that *probably* didn't have any mice living in it, and even though it was equipped with a whopping 3 power outlets the lack of internet access meant we couldn't be terribly useful in there. So we biked back into Lauvsnes and spent a nice afternoon at the grocery store, buying a week's worth of food and posting up in the little "cafe" section that most all Norwegian small-town grocers conveniently have. An automated coffee machine, tables, and WiFi - what better place for two bums to hide from the rain? Of course, the next day we ended up right back there, so we probably only needed 6 days of food on that first trip. It was time well spent getting caught up on a few responsibilities and trying to stay one step ahead of our future selves, plotting more parts of the trip so that we didn't accidentally run right off the end of our script (building a bridge while we're biking on it?).

Ben finally saw a moose in Norway! Impressively close to our tent at the campground.

Otherwise, life at the Climb Flatanger Campground took some... adjusting. Aside from the aforementioned barn, the amenities were rounded out by bathrooms and a kitchen. The kitchen was maybe 7 feet square and could only really fit 3 people semi-comfortably; heaven help you if you and someone else needed to use the stove-top at the same time (further complicated by the fact that only 3 of the 4 burners worked). A good chunk of space was taken up by a big white box that you could swear was a fridge but did no refrigerating. (The actual fridge was a much smaller, overstuffed affair in the barn that kept food just on the cold side of "room temperature" and had a severed goat head resting on top.) At morning and evening there was always a queue to cook or do dishes, as the groups fortunate enough to be cooking in camper vans still made a pilgrimage to the single sink to wash up. And there was a line at most other times of the day, too, because between the 4 French climbers it seemed at least one was always cooking something. I'll let you guess how long the electric kettle took to boil a liter of water.

The kitchen might have been small, but it did have an oven! We took the chance to make some brownies.

As for the bathrooms - two units, each equipped with 2 toilets, 2 showers, and a sink. Not bad, right? Except that only one toilet in each unit actually had enough space in between the bowl and the door to sit down. And while the showers in one of the bathroom units gave at least a *feeling* of privacy behind frosted glass, the other unit had two showers whose crystal-clear walls faced each other and out the front door, so that you and your showermate could look each other in the eye while washing up, and keep a watch on the characters coming in and trying to find ways to fold their knees that let them close the plastic-wood doors of the cramped toilet stalls. I'll let you guess how good the supply of hot water was.

Finally, being mediocre (at best) out-of-practice climbers surrounded by muscly, lithe, and bold people who have made international trips specifically to climb incredibly hard routes comes with a bit of psychological strain (to put it nicely). Susan and I suffered from a severe bout of impostor syndrome and had to frequently administer reassurances to each other that we could in fact rock climb and that we had a reason to go 50 km out of our way on the bikes to be here. Having the same climbing conversations on repeat quickly got old ("How was the climbing? What did you climb? The rock is good, huh? Have you climbed at such-and-such?"), and Susan quickly grew tired of people exclaiming "Oh, so you also climb?!", because apparently showing up on bikes and saying that we didn't go out because it was rainy meant we must just be sight-seeing.

By the third day, though, we'd managed to carve out some space for ourselves, get a little more comfortable jockeying for kitchen real estate, and learned that we could lock the door of the bathroom with the see-through showers and both use them at the same time. And the clearing weather finally gave us a chance to be climbers, too (albeit timid and lowly ones). We packed up the bags and headed to the crag with the easiest climbs, Sandmælon, figuring we'd better start with a bit of a refresher since we'd only climbed one day out of about the past two weeks (and also because we had to acquaint ourselves the French system for grading sport routes for the first time). As with most areas, "easy" here meant "slabby", so we were grateful for the plethora of bolts protecting the slightly-balancy moves on rock that still felt a little grimy from the morning mist. We worked through the grade 4a to 4c climbs before the rock fully dried and got rough and I felt good enough to try leading a short 5b. Meanwhile, a family showed up and put their kids on the climbs we'd spent the morning warming up on. Climbs for children means we're at the right place!

Our first climbing at Sandmælon - not too inspiring but just our speed

The next day had phenomenal weather and we happily hiked up to the Einvikfjellet crag in the sun, ready to get on more 5's after warming up a little the day before. We sought out one of the easier routes, a 5a, but it gave me a lot of trouble and I was worried we wouldn't actually be able to get much climbing in that day. We moved down the wall to some nominally harder routes (5b/5c) that nonetheless *looked* much friendlier, and sure enough we were right! Steeper climbing on rock with plenty of holds and some technical moves entertained us for a while. Susan shifted the rope to a 6a climb, and after a top-rope rehearsal I gave it a clean lead. By the end of the day I even on-sight led a 6a+! It felt really nice to get back on some harder (for us) climbs and work through them.

Enjoying sunny weather at the Einvikfjellet crag
Nice views from the top of Einvikfjellet

For dinner that evening we picked up one of the little picnic-grills that seemed to be so popular with the Norwegians along with a selection of meat and veggies; I'd been eager to try it out ever since we saw some climbers with one way back at the beginning of the trip. Sadly, the expectations didn't quite meet reality and "grill" is a charitable way to describe the device. But even if it didn't sizzle, with enough patience it eventually cooked our food, and it was an excellent way to end the day. The crag had been deserted all day (since it only has "easy" climbs it's not very popular) and we relished having some solitude and then even getting dinner without battling through a throng of people in the kitchen back at camp.

Picnic grill... a little slow but it came through eventually

At some point, though, we did have to go check out the massive cave of Hanshallaren and the spider-people tackling its walls, as well as try a few climbs up there that were more suited to our level, so we headed out despite a kind of rainy start to the day. After taking a wrong turn (have we mentioned Norwegian "trails" aren't very well defined?) we finally got up there and skirted around the top of a slope that led down to the base of the climbing, trying not to distract the hardfolk tip-toeing through one-armed pullups or wedging their knees into crevices as they climbed parallel to the ground. Susan and I had been poking gentle fun at some of the other Very Serious Real Climbers that week, partly to cover up our own insecurities, but there's no denying it was pretty cool to see some of the crazy stuff they could do to get up these walls.

Heading up towards Hanshallaren, getting an idea of just how big this cave is
Some impressive climbers on some wild routes

It was also really to see the cave! Just as a natural landmark it was worth the trip, like a granite whale breaching out of the brown and green earth, its gaping maw opening enormously from the hillside to feed as it crashed back towards the ocean below. The rock was impressively compact (caves typically don't have the most solid rock around - that's why a bunch falls down and makes a hole in the earth!) and looked to live up to its reputation as "the best rock in the world".

Susan shows off her muscles, ready to tackle the horizontal roof
...that's some steep climbing, though
Ben rehearses one of the climbs from the ground and cruxes out mentally. Or maybe he's a climbing fish caught on a line?
The view back out from the cave

After sneaking around and farther up the hill we found the climbs we were looking for along the rock flanks outside the cave - more slab, to our chagrin. Some long (100 ft) 5a's there were fun but the 3 meter gaps between sometimes poorly-positioned bolts kept me on edge and made the climbs seem more nervy than they really needed to be.

Looking up towards the much-less-steep climbs that we could attempt

After a few pitches we called it a day and finished by hiking to the top of the hill that housed Hanshallaren to take in the views. One of the friendly Brits camped next to us had recommended trying to catch the sunset from up there, and it didn't disappoint. The landscape around Flatanger provided us with plenty of beauty throughout our stay - balding domes of silver granite ringed and splotched with dark-but-vibrant green moss and shivering birches poked out of the ocean in every direction, sometimes modestly, forming delicate chains of small islands, and sometimes proudly, exposing steep flanks and shadowy clefts.

Golden-grey sunset over Flatanger

The hike (and getting a little lost again) gave us plenty of time for some healthy reflection on our detour to Flatanger, on our own motivations for climbing and how we position ourselves (or try *not* to position ourselves) in the world. We never had a *bad* experience with anyone at the camp, and plenty of our interactions there - watching the young stronk boys try to learn how to gut one of the copious mackerel caught in the neighboring ocean, getting advice on Scotland from our friendly British camp-neighbors, chatting with the French lady who had also biked there but still did hard sport climbs (maybe that trad rack wasn't doing us any good?) - had been pleasant and entertaining. At the same time, it was clear we didn't *belong* there; this was just a nice side-trip on our long journey, we hadn't specifically trained for years just to get to the point that we could visit Hanshallaren and do difficult climbs, we didn't have anything to prove or take seriously, and that was OK. Part of getting older, I guess.

There's a trail there, the Norwegians swear!
Selfie on top of Hanshallaren

Our final day there saw some pleasant weather, so we couldn't help but try to get in a few last pitches, and went back to Sandmælon. After a couple warm ups I got on a mostly-overhanging 6a route with the words "Panic Boy" forebodingly scrawled at the bottom; sure enough I needed Susan to hold me for a rest at every bolt, and then she had to spend about 30 minutes waiting for me to figure out and commit to the moves between the last bolt to the anchor.

That seemed to be a sign that maybe we should take a break from all this climbing, so we went back to camp and were faced with a choice. Did we just hang out for the afternoon, fight for another dinner in the kitchen, awkwardly sit around the skilled climbers, and leave the next day? Or did we break camp and pedal back to the main highway, gaining some much-needed solitude and maybe an extra day in our schedule? Dreading using that kitchen any more and looking at a nice-and-dry tent we quickly made the choice, had a nice chat with our neighbors while packing up, and then trundled on along to finish our southbound tour.

A view out to the coast of Flatanger; it's certainly a special place.

Comments

  1. "Oh how they suffer for their sport". What a janky camp ground and off vibes all around. You guys are totally real climbers 😤

    Not trying to say quit climbing... but y'all should really pick up fishing. It's good for the soul. No good / bad. Just exist by the side of the creek. At the rate I'm going, I should have 3-4 rods by the time I meet y'all in Turkey 👀. Maybe we can try fishing the Bosphorus...

    And He said to them, “Follow Me as My disciples, accepting Me as your Master and Teacher and walking the same path of life that I walk, and I will make you climbers of fish.”

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    Replies
    1. Thanku for the encouraging words. During our stay there we remarked several times "Wow Hy would hate this".

      Sounds like you might have some good gateway rods for us....

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