Black Pearl

Sharma in his forties still finding king lines above the sea is a story in itself, and Reel Rock knows it. Black Pearl is a roughly 100-foot overhanging wall near Sóller on Mallorca's northwest coast, smooth and largely featureless, with slopey edges and a single three-finger pocket that Sharma called the key to the whole sequence. He first tried it in 2017 and made the first ascent on November 7, 2023, grading it 5.15a, on par with Es Pontàs.

This is for anyone who wants to see the physical toll of deep water soloing at the top end: 5.13a/b to a rest, a fifteen-move crux around 5.14b/c into a dyno near V9 to reach the pocket, then sustained 5.13b/c to the top of the cliff, and enormous falls into the water when any of it fails. Brett Lowell shoots it. Skip it if you want the Es Pontàs image again. This wall is blank rather than an arch, and the drama is in the pocket, not a jump.

What works is the falls. They are huge and the film does not cut away. The Mediterranean light is the same as it was in 2007 and the man in it is older, and the nine minutes feel that. What it gets wrong is the years. Six seasons of returning compress into a short, and the sense of a long project is thinner than the climbing.

Es Pontàs: The First Ascent is the companion, and the two together are sixteen minutes on the arc of one climber's discipline. Watch them in order. This one is the better climb. That one is the better film.