Giant Ascent: Chris Sharma Free Climbs Huge Redwood w/ Help of Scientists

Check out the full story on Sharma in The Red Bulletin: In a quest to return to his climbing roots and to advance the understanding of California’s giant Coast Redwoods, Chris Sharma recently embarked on an unprecedented free climb in a Northern California forest glade. Using only his hands and feet and protected from falls by a rope and harness, Sharma collected valuable data from a soaring Redwood, located in a city park in Eureka, to measure tree water status as an indicator of how it has been affected by the current severe drought. Red Bull worked closely with two UC Berkeley Tree Biologists in preparing for and executing this project. The UC Berkeley tree biologists are currently developing funding to evaluate the impact of the current historic drought on redwood trees and forests in the Santa Cruz Mountains near the southern edge of the redwood range; a link to their fundraising site can be found here: Donation offer starts 6/15/15. Offer ends the earlier of 7/