American climber Sasha DiGiulian has become the first woman to free-climb El Capitan's longest route — a journey she said ended up being the "most formative and challenging climb" of her career.

"When we got to the top, after 23 days of this climb, I took a step and I just started laughing cause I was like, I haven't walked in so long," DiGuilian told CBS News in a phone interview Monday.

DiGiulian free-climbed the roughly 3,000-foot sheer granite wall in Yosemite National Park over the course of more than three weeks, nine days of which were spent waiting out bad weather on a wall ledge. Having eyed El Cap for years, DiGiulian is one of the few to summit via the long and difficult Platinum route.

Vehicles line the Yosemite Valley floor near El Capitan at Yosemite National Park, Cal

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