Watch the below video for Chris Sharma climbing his new traverse problem Super Blood Wolf Moon. Unroped and with a crash pad, this 25 metre, 30 move problem in Cova de Ocell is a bit of an odd one as it could just be seen as a boulder problem, similar to some of Alex Ondra’s hard traverses like Terranova.
Sharma says in his instagram post “About 30 moves, and if I had to put a grade on it, I’d say it’s comparable to a 9a [5.14d] route. I know there is a traverse rating system, but no idea how it works. Anyone know what this could be?”. Super Blood Wolf Moon refers to the recent crazy red looking moon as the moon went into the Earth’s shadow. Also it’s a great looking problem and comes with it’s own phone speaker dock shown at 2:36 in the video.
Chris Sharma seems not to be climbing a huge outside amount in the last few months and alludes to it in his instagram post for this climb “…great to get out in nature and escape the vortex. So important for my sanity to get outside and touch rock!”. Most likely due to his new Sharma gym opening in Madrid, which will be the sister to Sharma Climbing BCN in Barcelona.
Cova de Ocell is where Sharma put up the sport climb “El bon combat” in 2015, rating it 9b/+ at that time, though Jakob Shubert repeated it in 2018 and rated it as a “hard 9a+”. Patxi Usobiaga was working that same line with Chris but hasn’t completed the route and it hasn’t seen any other ascents since. The area also boasts around five other 9a sports routes.
Chris is also working another hard project right next to “El bon combat” and Cova de Ocell is where he put up the “Witness the Fitness” V15 boulder problem back in 2005, video below. Daniel Woods recently came back to the area to complete it even though holds had broken and the route had changed after Fred Nicole first repeated it in 2006.
