Every climber has one: the climb that’s just beyond one’s limits. The perfect line, with the perfect moves, balanced on the edge of what appears real and what is impossible. The line where success seems within reach, just half of the holds don’t. The project.

By definition, a project is a route or boulder problem that is too difficult for a climber to do on his or her first try, or even on the first day of attempts. Typically a project demands months of training and days of attempts, which do not always result in a successful ascent. Pros are known to log years on especially difficult climbs, sometimes falling hundreds of times at the same point in the climb. Often, the mental challenge of sticking with it overcomes the physical challenge of linking all the moves.

Simply put, projecting is the art of practicing defeat, over and over again.

This fall, I had a project of my own. Nestled in the woods below an expansive range of cliffs, this boulder had witnessed more of my wobblers (screaming fits) and bloody tips than any other piece of rock in the entire state. Although many of my friends had already climbed the problem, seemingly without difficulty, this line had eluded me for days on end. It represented all my physical weaknesses in climbing and held many more of my mental frustrations.

I literally spent days sitting underneath this chunk of rock, staring at the holds and vainly attempting to make sense of a sequence I knew I couldn’t do. The holds were too slope-y, the highstep too high, the top-out too scary. Some days I would drive three hours only to discover the climb was soaking wet, or covered in snow. Other times I would arrive so weak and frustrated that I couldn’t get off the ground.

Every time I walked away in defeat, I debated with myself if I would ever come back, questioning whether a year of falling, six-hour drives and a constant lack of fingerprints was really worth climbing something only 15 feet tall.

Early this fall, I gave up on my project. It was too hard, and more importantly, too mentally exhausting. I treated it like a bad breakup — I was eager to move on. Yet on a sunny October afternoon, my friend Jess suggested that we stop by the boulder at the end of our day, just to check it out. Reluctantly, I pulled on my shoes and gave the opening move a go. As usual, I fell. Disappointed but not surprised, I decided to try out the middle sequence of moves, just to see if they felt any different than they had for the last year. Yet this time, I stuck the high step no problem. Then the sloper. Then the slap. Then the undercling! Before I knew it I was nearly at the top!

One hour later, I had finally pieced together every single move. All save for the final slap to the top. I had fallen probably a dozen times from that move in the last 60 minutes and was now short on daylight and skin.

Jess suggested that we leave it for today and come back tomorrow fresh. I asked for one more try. I pulled up, hit the first move, and then turned on the auto-pilot. Before I knew it, I had pulled the top-out, and was sitting on the top. I had done it. One year and a gazillion falls later, I had finally dispatched my project.

Sitting on the top, I glanced out at the field of boulders strewn before me, each containing thousands of untried problems.

Now that this project was over, I needed a new one.