La Dura Dura: Chris Sharma

Like seconds ticking on a clock,

each move comes into existence for one perfect moment,

then passes as the next one arises,

all flowing into each other.

Through this reconstruction of each note,

we begin to hear the maestro music.

Preface: Ten Minutes of Zen



Sport climbing is known as a casual, fun subset of climbing. For most, it means no pressure; it’s all about spending a day playing in the vertical with your friends. But as sport climbs get harder and harder, the whole thing gets more mental. And much less casual. Of course, climbing is just a fun, meaningless game. Nothing to take too seriously. But when rock climbs get so hard that they’re right at our own physical limits, that’s when climbing becomes more than just a game. In fact, it becomes the very embodiment of life itself and its entire struggle. By pushing ourselves to become better, stronger climbers, we practice and learn how to become better, stronger people.



Look no further than any photo of a climber clinging to blank beautiful stone by the tips of his or her fingers to understand the sport’s physical appeal. But capturing what really drives and motivates these climbers to take on their own big projects is much more difficult. So much of climbing takes place within the mind, and demands its elastic evolution over many months, even years. When you see great athletes, like Chris Sharma or Adam Ondra, two of the best climbers in the world, executing beautiful flowing movements on an overhanging rock face, it all looks so graceful and easy. But you can’t see what’s taking place inside, nor fully appreciate the long journey and profound learning experiences those climbers went through to get there.



It actually only takes about ten minutes to climb from the bottom to the top of a route without falling—which, in climber jargon, is called the “redpoint” or the “send.” Often, after a hard redpoint, climbers typically remark on how surprised they are that this once impossible route now feels so easy.



Why is this? Climbing your hardest isn’t about brute strength and biceps; it’s a matter of climbing perfectly, all without any thoughts or feelings of attachment to yourself or success. Somehow, the mind always needs to catch up to where the body already is.



It’s all very Zen.



In climbing, attaining those ten minutes of Zen can be frustrating and humbling. As you practice the moves on the route by climbing on it day after day, ultimately striving to one day link all the moves together without falling, you begin to feel like you are at war with yourself. Before each attempt you may feel nervous; then, your foot slips on an easy section and you fall. You may find yourself distracted and drawn away from main goal when you begin measuring yourself up against others. You fall again. The scariest part is when you begin to doubt yourself and wonder if you might never be good enough. You fall and fall and fall again while trying to untie each and every one of these mental knots.



In order to survive this experience, it’s important that you learn to just enjoy being up on the rock, pulling with your fingers and toes, and trying really hard even if you do fall. Just as yogis may not achieve perfect form every day, they still stretch, just because stretching feels good. Same with climbing. It just feels good to climb. Simply getting out on the rock can be its own type of success, perhaps even more important than the one of actually sending the route.



And once we enter this space of just enjoying the stripped-down act of climbing for no other reason than we love it, we suddenly find ourselves open to learning some valuable things. What true passion means. How to recognize when your motivation is external and false, and when it genuinely comes from within. How to confront ourselves honestly, change for the better, release our attachments to success, and let go of our egos.



When we’re least attached—to our egos, to outcomes, to our projects—that’s when we perform our best.



Typically, the whole process of dreaming up, taking on and ultimately completing any Big Project unfolds in five stages: Inspiration, Purpose, Humility, Perseverance, and Mastery. Here, as told in five corresponding essays, is a story that could be any of our stories.



But it just so happens that this is a climbing story about Chris Sharma and his five-year journey to do the hardest rock climb in the world.

INSPIRATION

How steep, how blank, and how difficult does a rock face need to get before it can’t humanly be done?



These are the questions today’s top sport climbers are trying to answer. This year, thanks to Adam Ondra and Chris Sharma for their respective first and second ascents of La Dura Dura, that inquiry continues.



La Dura Dura is located in Oliana, Spain, on a cliff face that has more hard routes than anywhere else in the world. “La Dura Dura” essentially means the “Hardest of the Hard.” Chris Sharma—the Santa Cruz-born climber with surfer good looks who has been pushing climbing standards for the last 15 years—first installed the protection bolts, which are necessary to begin climbing on the wall, on La Dura Dura five years ago. But after he realized how hard and sustained the moves were, he wrote off the route as something he’d never be able to send.



“I figured it would be for the next generation,” he said. He showed the line to the up-and-coming Adam Ondra, a bespectacled phenom from the Czech Republic. Soon these two top rock climbers, with drastically different physiques and climbing styles, found common ground by working together to figure out how to redpoint this one route.



Meanwhile, the climbing world waited with bated breaths for updates from Oliana to see who would get the first ascent. La Dura Dura became more than just a hard route. It became symbolic of a claim to the title of world’s best rock climber.



Ultimately, Ondra, 20, got the first ascent on February 8th. On March 23rd, Sharma, 31, did the second ascent. Today, with a rating of 5.15c, La Dura Dura is considered the most difficult rock climb in the world.



Those are the basic facts. But they only comprise the surface of the story.



Some five years ago, La Dura Dura didn’t exist other than as a simple, vague desire within Sharma to progress as a climber. In 2008, at 27 years old, Sharma had just sent Jumbo Love, thereby establishing the first rock climb rated 5.15b. This was actually the second time Sharma had advanced the world standard; in 2001, he climbed Realization, the first 5.15a. By many measures, Sharma had proven himself to be the best climber of his generation. It was something he had been told all his adult life, too—flattering hype that always made him uncomfortable, if not wary. But it wasn’t until he completed Jumbo Love that he realized one of the reasons why.



Sharma looked within and realized he’d been climbing for 15 years and, thus far, he hadn’t really had to try very hard to be the best.



“Up until that point, in a lot of ways, I’d been just riding on my talent,” says Sharma. “I thought, ‘OK, enough of this. Let’s see what happens if I really dedicate myself to sport climbing. Let’s see how far I can push it, if I give everything to it.’”



It’s not always necessary to know exactly what your Big Project is or looks like from the get go. We may not even know it exists. A better first step is to recognize what you are most passionate about. Then follow wholeheartedly that pure inspiration. That’s what will steer us toward the most meaningful projects of our lives.



After climbing the world’s first 5.15a and 5.15b, the next step was obvious. 5.15c. But what does that even look like? Where is it? How do you begin?



Realization and Jumbo Love were both originally discovered and bolted by a previous generation of great climbers, and were given to Sharma as projects. Now, in the wake of their completions, Sharma faced an absence of known projects that might yield that next step in difficulty.



If he wanted to progress as a climber, he would need to create an entirely new way to do so.



“That’s the thing about being on the cutting edge. You have to invent it. First, you have to have a vision and imagine what it might look like. Then you have to be able to use that vision, see what the next step is, seek it out, and create it.”



Despite not knowing exactly what he was looking for, Sharma set off to Spain for its concentration of steep, high-quality and untouched rock, hoping to find a route that would be beautiful, inspirational and, above all, really, really hard.

PURPOSE

Finding La Dura Dura wasn’t an easy or obvious process.



Sharma chose Catalunya because he knew it offered a high concentration of steep limestone walls with futuristic climbing potential.



“I climbed at Santa Linya, Margalef, Siurana, but none of those places had the potential I was really looking for. Then, I went to Oliana, and I was like, ‘Wow, this place is amazing!’”



To be clear, it wasn’t as if Sharma went to Spain just to climb something he could rate 5.15c. In other words, attaining that grade wasn’t the main goal, necessarily. It was more about searching for that one big project that would give him a sense of purpose in its formidable completion.



Besides, upon arriving in Spain, Sharma had only done one 5.15b; he’d need to do at least a few more before he could realistically understand what 5.15c might feel like. He climbed routes rated 5.14d, 5.15a and 5.15b at Santa Linya, Margalef, and Siurana. Each of these routes took many months to do, and almost all of them were first ascents.



Virtually all over the rock-studded region of Catalunya, Sharma had sub-projects. It was motivating, though overwhelming. The “Catalunya Syndrome,” as locals call it, is a grievous affliction upon the psyched climber who takes on so many projects that he ultimately spreads himself too thin and ironically never gets any of them done.



Though he didn’t know it at the time, all these routes—with names such as Golpe de Estado, Neanderthal, and Catxasa—were preparing him, driving him headlong toward La Dura Dura.



If we are in a rush to get to the top of that one big goal or project, we may find ourselves unprepared when the time comes. Pyramids aren’t built by beginning with the capstone. Instead, each block, unglamorous and painstaking, must be first laid below. But in laying that foundation, we discover a sense of purpose that drives us upward and onward



Oliana was virtually unclimbed when Sharma arrived. To an artist, the blank canvas can be terrifying. Same with a blank wall. Where are the routes? Where the holds? Is this section of wall even possible? A rock face that looks hopelessly blank may, in fact, have finger edges and toe holds. A climber begins sketching in a potential line by first installing fixed bolts. The bolts allow you to actually get up on the wall and see, brush, touch, and breathe life into the holds. Some of those holds might only be the width of a fingernail. Rock is strong. Even a tiny edge can support body weight.



If there are holds, then perhaps one can discover a sequence of hand and foot movements to link them. If that sequence goes from the ground to the top of the wall, theoretically you have a route.



At Oliana, Sharma bolted the two most obvious lines: Pachamama and Papichulo, both clocking in at 5.15a. Then Sharma bolted La Dura Dura because he was drawn to its aesthetic quality: it was a beautiful, if blank-looking, streak of blue and white limestone.



“To dedicate a year, or five years, of your life to any route, for me it has to be beautiful,” he says. “That’s what I’ve always looked for in rock climbs: not just a physical challenge, but something beautiful to look at and climb.”



When Sharma tried the moves on La Dura Dura, he was almost horrified by how difficult they were



“Originally, I didn’t think La Dura Dura was for me,” he says. “I did all the moves on it. But each move seemed so ridiculously hard that I couldn’t ever imagine doing them consecutively. I never saw myself being able to climb it.”



La Dura Dura is distinguished as the first route of Chris Sharma’s life that, at first, he didn’t believe he could do. He knew it was possible for someone, but thought it was too hard for him.



How this belief, or lack therefore, factors into the completion of any climb, especially when it comes to a climb that’s never been done by anyone before, makes so much difference. Vision is everything. We need to have that vision, an unshakeable optimism, in order to walk that impossible path ahead. But that belief doesn’t always have to come from within. Sometimes, we can rely on the vision of others to help get us going. Chris Sharma was born in Santa Cruz, California. He started climbing in a local gym, one of the first gyms in the country, when he was 12. It was immediately obvious that he was gifted. He won national competitions and repeated various hard routes easily. Around that time in the mid-1990s, Boone Speed was the top sport climber in America. For Speed, there was one particular route that seemed on the verge of being impossible: an unclimbed project called Necessary Evil. Located in the Virgin River Gorge, this rock climb with barely-there holds, would be the hardest climb in the U.S., should someone ever do it. Speed showed a then 15-year-old Sharma the project. In Necessary Evil Sharma found, for the first time in his life, something to sink his teeth into. For the first time as a climber, he had discovered how a project can completely order your life and give you a sense of purpose. “Boone’s vision gave me the head start I needed,” says Sharma. “It was super valuable for my progression as a climber.” Necessary Evil was a beginning for Sharma, a catalyst for the ensuing 15-year chain reaction, sparking, all driving him inexorably toward La Dura Dura. “That route jumpstarted my career, jumpstarted my own personal vision. One of the hardest things is having that vision seeing something that has never been done. Once you see it and you do it, you’re like, ‘OK, maybe there’s room for something harder.

HUMILITY