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NZ gets its first V14 22-May-2005 At 6:50:33 AM cragrat

Message

from Powerband

12/05/05 - Sharma comes to town

"Maybe people know, maybe people don't know...but I wasn't a believer. I mean...how much can you know
by reading a magazine? But he is NASTY strong!" Wasn't that a quote about Garth Miller? Or something
like that anyway?

But enough crap - Chris Sharma has been at Castle Hill for the last two weeks and has opened New
Zealand's first v14 boulder problem. In fact, in two weeks, Sharma (traveling with Boone Speed, Mike Call,
Nate Gold, Lauren Lee and a whole crew of local groupies (some of whom had flown from around NZ just
to grope and fawn)) opened around 10 hard new problems at Spittle Hill and Flock Hill between v9 and
v14.

Reluctant as ever to detail his amazing feats, Sharma would only guess at the grade of his hard new lines
- suggesting that one of his lines on Flock Hill (on the Trifecta boulder) could be in the v14 range. It might
even be called the Black Dragon or maybe the Red Dragon - we couldn't actually confirm that. But the
short point is the problem is HARD (with a capital SLOPER!).

In other news, we can tell you that Sharma cleaned up an old project near Thrust v7 on Spittle Hill in three
or four tries - at moderate v12. Other 'impossible' looking lines were not so lucky.
http://www.cactusclimbing.co.nz/powerband/news/news.html