Sharma evolves his climbing lifestyle

Chris Sharma, driven by rock climbing challenges that made him the most influential climber in the world, lately has been going for new challenges outside his FA comfort zone lifestyle. Back home in the USA he has opened a new climbing gym and also put a lot of energy with the Psicobloc competition series. Last autumn he spent five weeks on at the Auyan Tepuy in Venezuela as a stunt-doubling for a remake of the classic 1991 surf film Point Break that will be released this autumn. During the Outdoor show in Friedrichshafen, we had a quick chat with Chris in between all his meetings. "Stunt-doubling was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was an amazing opportunity and the scenery with the water wall and high quality rock is just incredible. It was also a crazy experience as we could not go climbing for five weeks. We were mainly waiting, always stand by for doing some scenes. Luckily Dani Andrada was together with me so sure we did some climbing anyhow." In august he is opening another state-of-the-art climbing gym in Barcelona, close to where he lives. Climbingwise, it is just the same as always, with a focus on establishing cutting edge, high quality routes. In February he opened El Bon Combat 9b/+ at Cova de Ocell, a crag located some 40 minutes from Barcelona. There are other great projects to be done this winter. "Cova de Ocell, it is a mix of high quality sandstone and conglomerate in different colors and a beautiful setting. It is not so steep and just 25 meters and from the ground it looks kind of easy but it's not as there is no big holds at all. I was so lucky to find it close to where I live now." The #2 in Lead World Championship in 1997, at an age of 15 years old, also has a house close to Lleida, the epicentre of hard core climbing in the world. In fact, many of Chris' routes in Margalef, Santa Linya and Oliana are among the most popular and highest quality rated in the 8a database.