Chris Sharma started climbing at the age of 12 in a climbing gym. He was a fast study: At the age of 14, he won a national bouldering competition and, just one year later, he climbed a 5.14c route, the highest-rated rock climb in North America at the time. While he still continues to compete, his focus is to find routes around the world that no one else has climbed and work on them until he can “send” each route.