Kai Lightner Joins The 9a Club With Era Vella

This is his first climb at the grade

Gripped Magazine April 7, 2015

The rock climbing phenom Kai Lightner is off a recent win of the Sport Climbing Societies national championships.

American climber Kai Lightner joins the other young new-to-the-9a-club climber Ashima Shiriashi with his recent send of Era Vella 5.14d (9a) in Margalef, Spain.

A photo posted by Cameron Maier (@bearcam) on Apr 7, 2015 at 5:49pm PDT

Lightner wrote on his Instagram, “Sent my first 9a, Era Vella today! My hands are wrecked, and im psyched to go home on a high! Thanks for all of the support from everyone!” Era Vella was established in 2010 by Chris Sharma.

Watch Sasha Digiulian send Era Vella:

Had a great time today! Gave a couple burns on my project and got to hang out with @chris_sharma. Pysched to go back and give Era Vella all Ive got!

A photo posted by Kai Lightner (@kailightner) on Apr 4, 2015 at 4:23pm PDT

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