BURST
On July 1, Leo Ketil Bøe, a 26 year-old former Norwegian lead champion, redpointed—well, pinkpointed—Verdens Ende, a 5.15a/9a+, 130-meter (420-foot) single pitch in Flatanger, Norway. Verdens Ende, which is a massive extension to the bolted Brunhilde Low (5.14d), is protected afterward by pre-placed cams and nuts. (Yes, you read all of that right.) But what makes Bøe’s ascent of Verdens Ende truly impressive is the answer to the trite question typically posed to climbers: How did you get the rope up there? Climbing spoke to Bøe yesterday to find out.
How does a line so long, and climbed in such bizarre style, even get conceptualized? This is not the first behemoth single pitch in Flatanger. Bøe, who has redpointed many Flatanger lines, including Change (5.15c), gathered inspiration from Seb Bouin’s Nordic Marathon (5.15b/c), another link-up of similar length that goes through the entirety of the cave (which, logically, was originally bolted and envisioned as a four-pitch project by Magnus Midtbø). “I was really inspired by Seb’s link-up…it makes a lot of sense to climb through the whole cave,” Bøe explained. “I knew I wanted to do that.” Bøe’s vision for Verdens Ende was simple: start as close to the middle of the Hanshelleran cave as possible, and climb out of it to the top of the wall.
The trad portion of Verdens Ende—Norwegian for “The World’s End”—came out of necessity: the cave is currently under a bolting ban. For Verdens Ende, Bøe piggy-backed off an experiment from last season, where he pre-placed gear in an eight-meter crack to connect Nordic Flower (5.14a) with Valkyrie (5.14b). The cave, Bøe emphasized, is full of crack features that can be used to protect with gear. Bøe’s trad climbing background, meanwhile, is minimal: “I have very little experience, but I was eager to make this project work.”
Armed with a rack of mostly borrowed gear and some knowledge (“I can tell what a bad cam looks like”), Bøe ascended a fixed line to the anchors of Brunhilde Low, and began questing up through the cave into unknown terrain, “free climbing,” he explained, “but resting lots on the gear, of course.” When he ran out of energy, he would lower, rest on the ground, and then ascend his line to his highpoint and start again. It took Bøe two days of effort to reach the lip of the cave, and the unlocked terrain included a V9 boulder problem. Bøe said he did not rip any gear during this ground-up hijinx, but there were “a few times where I would pull up after I’d fall and the cam was very open.” (Bøe later jettisoned these marginal pieces and opted for bigger runouts between better pieces.) Once he surpassed the lip of the cave he lowered, and then worked the pitch like a sport route. For the top, more-vertical section of the headwall, Bøe rappelled on a pre-existing anchor and placed his remaining gear—not much, mostly small nuts—every “five to 10 meters” but decided not to rehearse any of its moves, as he reckoned it wouldn’t be difficult.
To avoid running out of rope on this 130-meter pitch, as well as limiting the heinous rope drag, one must move their rope from the back of the cave a few times. Bøe explained there are a few ways to do this, two of which are illustrated in Bouin’s Nordic Marathon video: transferring to a pre-placed rope, or clipping in directly to protection while still free climbing, going off-belay, and pulling the rope through all the lower draws until it hangs unencumbered to the deck below. Bøe chose to do the latter three times on Verdens Ende.
Sending Verdens Ende, the longest 5.15a in Norway
Verdens Ende is best appreciated with a good-old fashioned route breakdown. Bøe started by climbing Brunhilde Low, a massive, 60-meter 5.14d (which actually starts on Thor’s Hammer, Flatanger sounds like a bumper-car ride of 5.14s and 5.15s, crissing and crossing). Partway up Brunhilde Low, Bøe completed his first rope transfer from a single bolt and a “very good kneebar—two pieces of protection,” Bøe half-joked. He pulled the rope through again, higher on Brunhilde Low, this time on another kneebar and two bolts clipped together; Bøe added a terrifying anecdote here that on the try before his send, deep in a focused flow-state and in a “stupid” trance because of how long he had been upside down in the cave, he accidentally clipped his personal anchor to the rope and not to his belay loop, essentially free soloing on a kneebar during the rope transfer.
Bøe then clipped the anchors of Brunhilde Low and started up the new terrain beyond, following his chalk and pre-placed gear. His next nest of gear is about six meters from the anchors of Brunhilde Low. What does the nest consist of? “Oh god,” Bøe laughed when asked, “I’m such a noob on trad. Two really good nuts…medium sized, and a small cam…I couldn’t even tell you what brand, it was dark coloured, or maybe grey.” Bøe is not blind to his inexperience: “I was not comfortable at all in the beginning. I know what a good cam is, but I was very out of my comfort zone.” Nonetheless, from the nest is the crux of Verdens Ende, a V9 boulder. A seven-meter runout follows, to a welcomed nest of two hand-sized pieces: “These are bomber. You feel so safe once you’ve clipped those [cams].” From this point to the lip of the cave is a 30-meter 5.13c on “good” holds, protected first with hand-sized cams, and then, higher, with micro-cams. At the lip of the cave, Verdens Ende has one more V6 crimpy-boulder problem that Bøe protected with 0.1- and 0.2-sized cams below his feet: “[I was thinking] I can run this out, I am so far above the ground. I took that fall and it was okay.”
After 90 meters of climbing, Bøe’s final rope-pull occurred on a sloping ledge after the lip of the cave, where he was clipped directly into two cams behind a suspect flake, and “the tiniest nut of your life” in another crack. “I was a little bit anxious because I don’t have enough experience to know if the flake was good, so I placed three pieces, but I knew I wasn’t going to fall off the ledge,” Bøe added. After this pumpy rope pull and being put back on belay, Bøe began up the 40-meter headwall for the first time, having rappelled it once to pre-place gear and ensure there were no obvious loose holds that needed to be cleaned. Bøe climbed through it without incident, clipping a marginal pre-placed piece every eight meters or so, and reckoned it was about 5.10d. “Gear-wise, I didn’t feel very safe,” Bøe explained, “but I felt very safe in that I was feeling secure at the level of the climbing. Bøe was nervous that the holds could be wet, or loose, but ultimately found that he “was overthinking it. It ended up being a lovely experience.
Verdens Ende appeared to be not a statement of style from Bøe—he isn’t suddenly super psyched on trad climbing—but more so about wanting to climb from the bottom of his favourite crag, to the top, in one rope length, while respecting the bolt ban: “I was given a challenge with the circumstances—climb the cliff without placing bolts—maybe it takes more time, but it was a very cool challenge.” Bøe thinks, should the ban be one day lifted, he would maybe support Verdens Ende being bolted with runouts similar to the gear placements, but also hopes that people repeat it in a similar manner to him for the time being.
Bøe’s Instagram post about his experience on Verdens Ende features a video of him topping out the massive crag and heroically untying his rope to walk down the backside. Badass, but it begs the question that follows How did you get the rope up there?: How did you get your gear back? In response to this, Bøe laughed, “I haven’t actually cleaned my gear yet. I was so tired that we just went bouldering for a few days. I’m going back to the cave tomorrow.” Bøe said he hoped the ephemeral line of gear through the cave would encourage strong visiting climbers to give the route a try, and isn’t fussed about the ethics of leaving the gear on the route for a short time. He plans to clean it soon, as many of the cams are borrowed, by re-climbing to the lip and then downclimbing, cleaning his gear as he goes. Can he downclimb the V9 crux? “No,” Bøe laughed, and then paused, “that part will include some falling.”
The post How Leo Bøe Used Cams, Nuts, and Three Ropes-Changes to Climb a Monstrous 420-Foot 5.15a appeared first on Climbing.