Throwback Thursday: Watch First Ascent of Jumbo Love 5.15b

In 2007, Chris Sharma sent his big project at Clark Mountain in California called Jumbo Love 5.15b. The first online video about the first ascent from a decade ago just hit the internet this week.

At the time Sharma sent Jumbo Love there were only a few other routes with that grade in the world, including two long boulder problems, Fred Rouhling’s Akira and Dani Andrada’s Ali-Hulk (sit-start-extension), and Bernabe Fernandez’s Chilam Balam. (Watch part I below and scroll down for part II)

The name Jumbo Love was inspired by its neighbour route first climbed by Randy Leavitt called Jumbo Pumping Hate 5.13. Leavitt developed the crag found high above Interstate 15 on the California/Nevada border south of Las Vegas.

Leavitt bolted Jumbo Love as a three-pitch route like his Jumbo Pumping Hate, but Sharma realized the potential for a mega one-pitch 60-metre rope stretcher. Sharma re-bolted the route, which has pockets, crimps and other glassy features.

It starts with 20 metres of 5.12 and kicks back to steep 5.14c climbing then gets harder near the top with a number of moves. Sharma took repeated 30-metre whippers, as there is only one jug.

In 2015, Ethan Pringle made the second and only other send of Jumbo Love at the age of 28. He had been working the route on and off for a few years. Pringle had repeated many of the world’s test-piece routes, such as Cobra Crack 5.14 in Squamish, the boulder Wheel of Life often graded 5.15a and Realization 5.15a.

Watch Pringle take a big whipper off Jumbo Love below.