The First Woman to Conquer one of the World's Hardest Climbs

In November of 2017, climber Angela Eiter made history by becoming the first woman to ascend one of the world's most difficult routes.

The route, Planta de Shiva, is located in the Spanish village of Villanueva del Rosario. In this village lies a cave with overhangs that shadow high above the safe ground. On a European grading scale, that makes this route a 9b. We know this in America as a 5.15b.

At the age of 31, Angela completed this route with a group of male climbers. Only two men have ever climbed a harder grade than the grade this woman accomplished. She worked relentlessly to complete the route from bottom to top with no artificial assistance.

Either explains that the simple fact that no woman had ever climbed this grade was not the driving force for her to complete the climb. She wanted to finish the route because it was a personal goal, not because it was a question of gender. Eiter returned to the rock seven times in an attempt to send the route.

The original story was overshadowed in the media by a climb sent by Adam Ondra. The media followed that climb and plugged stories about it more than they did for Angela. This brought up the question of gender in climbing and many other sports. Angela gracefully explains to media that the physically and mentally demanding sport has nothing to do with gender and that her goal is not to be better than the men climbing beside her.