1975

In 1975 three Rockies legends scoured The Bow Valley in search of the next great aid line. At the time, they were preparing themselves for a very early repeat of the Shield on El Capitan in Yosemite, and hoped to find the perfect training ground close to home. The Shield is a thin, technically challenging seam, and the three local boys (found in this photo below), finally discovered what they thought would be the ideal line, a rare and steep splitter finger crack on a blank wall.

Unfortunately a snow storm prevented them from reaching the crack itself, and they retreated from the second pitch, leaving behind some classic Chouinard knifeblades and shallow Cassin bolts. Some of which we removed for Kallen’s collection, other’s we left in place for protection for future free ascents.

Urs Kallen, Rob Mitchell and Billy Davidson never returned to the climb on Little Goat Mountain and it sat uninterrupted for 39 years.

Two days ago, Jon Walsh, Sam Eastman and Myself hiked back up to the route and I made the first free ascent. Although the climbing wasn’t as challenging as it looked from the ground, it gave me great pleasure to finish what was started in the Golden Era by 3 inspiring hard-men of the day.

The line goes at 5.12-, and we called it..”1975″.

Enjoy the pictures by Jon Walsh photography and stay tuned for more details as the story (hopefully told by Urs Kallen himself) unfolds. Thanks y’all for making this come to life. So stoked.

Source: https://sonnietrotter.com/2014/07/21/1975/