Sonnie Trotter discovers 1975, a new free climb in the Canadian Rockies

That's the reason why we're happy to highlight this ascent, by no means extreme but certainly beautiful, carried out by Trotter who recently focussed his attention on a line attempted almost four decades ago by Urs Kallen, Rob Mitchell and Billy Davidson. In 1975 these three Canadian climbers wanted to make an early repeat of the legendary The Shield route on El Capitan, the masterpiece put up three years earlier, over seven days, by Charlie Porter and Gary Bocarde that immediately became a manifesto for extreme aid climbing. Before traveling south to Yosemite though, Kallen, Mitchell and Davidson wanted to train on micro cracks and an ideal line was discovered on Little Goat Mountain in Bow Valley. But as Trotter explains "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."

Life is full of twists and turns and Kallen, Mitchell and Davidson never returned to the line on Little Goat Mountain that waited there, patiently, for 39 years until Trotter completed and freed it the other day together with Jon Walsh and Sam Eastman. The route is called 1975, has difficulties in the region of 5.12-, but as Trotter explains "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."

For further information visit: sonnietrotter.com