Men's Journal

Photo credit: Courtesy of Chris Sharma

Chris Sharma has been at the top of the sport climbing world since age 15. Now, with his most recent feat, he’s in a galaxy of his own.

by Dacus Thompson

Sharma first saw the mind-bending route up the Mojave Desert’s Clark Mountain three years ago. The line he had his eye on would turn out to be the toughest route ever climbed. “It’s hard to say it’s definitely the most difficult,” says Sharma, 27, “but I’ve never seen something done that’s harder.” The California native has been a superstar in sport climbing since he was 15, when he completed a 5.14c, then the hardest stateside climb. Sharma then had to go overseas for new tests, knocking off Europe’s most difficult lines one by one, before returning to the U.S. to tackle the Clark Mountain route, which Sharma dubbed Jumbo Love and rated an unprecedented 5.15b. It took a year and a half of strategizing, including more than 100 attempts on the wall with 40-degree overhangs and nearly impossible downward sloping holds. On September 11 he succeeded. “It’s cool to bring the hardest climb to my home state,” he says.

How are you sure this is the hardest climb ever completed?
There’s a whole process behind rating these climbs. It is kind of a consensus after other climbers try a route. It’s hard to say it definitely is the most difficult climb in the world. This is the hardest climb I’ve ever tried. I know my limitations pretty well, and I’ve never seen something that’s been done that’s harder than this.

What makes this climb so difficult?
It’s about 250-feet long and really overhanging. The movement and the holds are difficult. It’s about a 40-degree overhang, and the holds, these tend to be downward sloping so it’s hard to get a good grip on them. They’re far apart so you have to do these big moves in between each grip. It takes a lot of stamina and calculated, precise moves. It’s all about finding the exact sequence and executing it perfectly.

How’d you come across the Clark Mountain route?
Randy Leavitt developed this area for climbing about 15 years ago. And he mentioned there was the possibility of some futuristic climbs. So we started exploring and put in lots of hard work. It’s a cool process, but I’m really glad it’s over.

It’s just such a remote place. I did about four different trips to Clark Mountain over a period of about a year and a half. It’s an epic adventure getting out there in the first place. I ended up having to buy a Forerunner that I could beat up because the road was just a dried up river in the desert. Every time it flash floods out there the whole landscape changes. I’d go out there for two or three days at a time. We had to backpack in and we had to carry all of our water. I had to be strategic and save my strength for the next day, not climbing on the day we hiked in. That adds to the difficulty as well. Normally you don’t get that experience through regular climbing.

How did you prepare for the climb?
I don’t train so much. I’m more of a spontaneous climber. When I find these climbs I start training on the project; I tried this route over 100 times before I got it. But when you climb a lot you don’t really recover that well. You end up getting more tired than stronger. I’ve been living in Spain for the past year. It’s one of the world’s hot spots for climbing. I climb about five or six days a week, trying to get in shape. With other projects, I like to go there and spend two months working on the climb. But it would’ve just killed me to stay in the desert for two months. We’d spend the rest days in Las Vegas. But it’s not a very relaxing place to be. Too much traffic and 100-degree heat. The whole thing about the climb was really difficult. But it was something that I really wanted to do.

How important was it to you to do this climb in California?
I’ve put up a lot of the toughest climbs for the past 15 years, but they’ve all been over in Europe. It was really special for me to be able to put up the hardest climb in the world in my home state, to put California on the map in terms of climbing. Maybe it’ll give some of the climbers over in Europe incentive to come over and climb here.

After working on the climb for so long, how did you feel when you finally finished?
I was obviously very ecstatic and super psyched. I put in so much energy and work to get to that point, but at the same time in climbing there’s this funny thing: It’s rewarding and good, but you’re automatically thinking about the next thing. That challenge and that struggle and fight to complete the climb, you needed that. It’s a whole process. It’s the same in life. The end goal is very important, but once you reach the goal the whole experience is over. It’s a really good feeling, but now I have to look for new projects.

What’s next?
I’m not really sure yet. I’m just floating around climbing for fun right now. When I do get these projects it gives a lot of meaning to my life. My life is climbing. But you have to be so one pointed and it takes so much energy. And you can’t really just have fun climbing. So right now I’m just climbing around with my girlfriend. Just having fun.

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