"When I first saw Era Vella, the route was even more incredible than the pictures. It was huge and a little intimidating. When I first began to climb it, I realized that the individual moves were not hard for me, but I knew it would be a beast to link the moves together. This was the first time that I had projected a route not knowing if I was capable of sending it. For 140 ft of climbing you have to stay 100% focused the whole time. Thre route is so sustained that I could only n1 or 2  good attempts a day. My strength diminshed with each attempt. There were times I made it past the crux moves on the route only to fall close to the top, on a jug, because my foot popped! I'm used to cameras at competitions, but having someone there to document my disaapointment, frustration, and failures, was incredibly difficult."