As expected, Chris Sharma has done the first ascent of a possible 5.15b sport route in Spain, but it wasn’t the infamous First Round, First Minute project at Margalef (which he is still reportedly very close to doing). Instead Sharma ticked off the Neanderthal project in the cave at Santa Linya to yield his 3rd possible 5.15b after Jumbo Love and Golpe De Estado.
Seen in Dosage V, Neanderthal follows a long and sustained 40 meter line with a hard dyno near the top of the wall. After two years of work, Sharma was able to climb “really solid and very psyched” to reach the anchors of Neanderthal with a cheering crowd looking on.
Interestingly enough, Neanderthal wasn’t Sharma’s main focus lately, but poor conditions in Margalef led to a change of plans. Commenting on their blog, the guys at Big Up shed a little more light on things:
A quick heads-up: We got a last minute call from Sharma the other day, that he was about to send First Round First Minute, so Brett jumped on over to Spain to shoot it. Margalef got snowed out, so they went to Santa Linya instead, and today Chris did his other mega-proj, Neanderthal.
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Probably another 9b. There is footage of him trying it in Dosage 5. Now they have a few more days to go back to FRFM and try to get it done too…
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We will be making the footage available as a download from our site as soon as possible. More info to come… -Josh
After a quiet middle part of the year, Sharma seems poised to finish 2009 strong with this 5.15 FA under his belt and another possibly on the way.
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Stay tuned…
Update: Photos of Sharma climbing on Neanderthal from Pete O’Donovan
Update #2: TheLowDown chats with Dave Graham to get more accurate details about the route itself
Sharma never stops to amaze. Excellent!
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Impressive. Drawing on the grades discussion, I guess if any one knows what a 5.15b is it would be Sharma. I’d love to see some other people working these routes, especially Jumbo Love.
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Yeah… Would be nice to see Adam Ondra take on some of those routes
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It would be interesting to see someone like adam ondra try these harder routes, but like the title of this post points out a lot of the (what I assume to be) redpoint cruxes are huge throws and super burly moves, which don’t necessarily seem to be a lot of the higher end sport climbers forte. As everyone points out style seems to matter more and more the harder the climb.
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ondra repeated papichulo, no? confirmed it at its 9a+ grade if i remember correctly. i have a feeling some of sharma’s grades might settle harder than he’s suggested, but that’s just the hunch of an armchair commentator. prediction: jumbo love won’t be repeated till 2012, and it will be ondra, and he will make quick work of it. es pontas, i think, might not see a repeat for five years or more.
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wow so lets look at sharma’s ticklist now..
Neanderthal 15B
Golpe De Estado 15B
Jumbo Love 15B
Es Pontas 15B
Papichulo 15A
Pachamam 15A
La Rambla 15A
La Novena Enmienda 15A
Realization 15A
Wow….I’m voting Sharma as the best sport climber right now, especially ticklist wise. He’s also doing the most to push the sport.
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keep in mind, ethan pringle proposed jumbo love could very well register at 15c. just throwing that out there.
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Badass as that would be, keep in mind that Pringle only repeated one of Sharma’s 5.15a’s, and was shut down by more than one of his 5.14d’s, so I’m more inclined to trust Chris on the grade of his hardest routes because he is easily the most experienced at the grade. Now the interesting thing would be Ondra’s opinion, because he’s right up there imo.
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woah woah woah everyone slow down. You guys don’t know how hard these routes are! How dare you comment on their grades! You don’t know what it’s like to climb 5.15! wink,wink
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It seems like a repeat of Jumbo Love is going to take someone extremely fit and motivated given how difficult it is to project. Consider that most of Sharma’s other 5.15 FAs are rarely (or not) repeated and they are at pretty easily accessible crags in Spain and France. Adam Ondra would seem to fit that mold, but it remains to be seen if/when he will find himself out in the California desert.
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Sharma seems the most qualified to comment on the 5.15a/b range, so I think taking his word for it would be proper.
It might not be his style, but I can see Adam Ondra giving some of the more power/burly routes a good go soon. Especially since he has been boldering of late. Ondra with more power is a scary thought.
Props to Chris for his send!
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GREAT!!! ++++++++++++++++++++
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I just saw the video. Question: considering Sharma grabbed the chain at the end, did he really send Neanderthal?
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