In the shadow of the circus: Flatanger in English

Got a request from www.8a.nu about an article from the cave of Flatanger in English. We´ll here it is, please forgive me for my bad english!

Very few people I know have been out to the cave of Flatanger despite it is one of the largest in Scandinavia and with a huge potential for new routes. Some talk about their frightening appearance and the local climbers in Trondheim, doesn´t seem too interested, rather afraid of the cave and its daunting size. Of course, I was happily unaware of what impression it would give.

My friend Saku and I arrived in the early afternoon. The weather was great and we stumbled into the local landowner who where very happy to see climbers trying out his ”cave”. During our stay these people came down every night at dinner, for a chat; happy and proud that we wanted to climb in the area. Shocking it was since the opposite relation is quite usuall between landowners and climbers. The cave of Flatanger is actually called ”Hanshelleren”. It is big!, really big and it felt like being close to a nasty animal or a dangerous place. At first, it was a bit frightening, but after a while our levels of stress declined and the climbing became more relaxed!

(Relaxing at the route "Flaggermusmannen", eng: Batman)

The routes we climbed were all in great quality. The rock and the scenery is fantastic and the climbing is quite futuristic to be in Scandinavia, with long overhanging routes on generally good holds. There are only a few routes at the moment(approx. 20), though there is possible to make many more, maybe hundreds. The routes are between 15-25 meter, though this is just the beginning since you could continue as hard, steep and long as you can imagine. At the edges of the cave there is also potential for easier routes. It is for these things i have been going to Spain, but now it is only 350km away, and it it possible to pick your very own KINGLINE ! To say that we were climbing in the cave is a bit misleading, it might be impossible. In the theory you could actually climb a full horizontal pitch here and I would love to see Andrada, Graham, Sharma and all the others give it a go.

The only downside with ”Hanshelleren” and what we also discussed with the local landowner, was the lack of easier routes. They´d like to see more tourism in the area, preferably something that doesn´t have to do with fishing, since all the tourism here is about fish. Therefore they are positive to the establishment of new climbing areas and/or making more extensive use of ”Hanshellerens” potential. Bolts and anchors are also becoming a bit old (-96), and some would need to be replaced.

”If the distance between Flatanger and Trondheim was shorter than what it actually is, this might have been considered Norways best crag”

"From the Guidebook ”Klatring in Trondheim”