DEATH & TRANSFIGURATION, 4th Flatiron

This is another well-circulated Chelton photo of me on a later ascent (probably 1974) of Death & Transfiguration, a stunningly beautiful climb in a remote area of the Flatirons. I did the first ascent of this climb in 1972 and gave it the name because it was for me a metamorphosis from being an aid climber to a being free climber.

A few weeks before the first ascent of Death and Transfiguration in 1972 I did the Direct Route on Half Dome (the 5th ascent) with Larry Hamilton. This was a 5-day big wall aid climb with lots of hammering and hauling, and I was very fit coming back to Boulder. I had discovered this little gem up in the Flatirons a few years earlier and went up there with my friend Luke Studer thinking we would use some aid to establish the line. I started out free-climbing on the easier rock toward the bottom of the climb, and got further and further until pulling this intimidating overhang you see in the photo. Above that I got a bit of a much-needed semi-rest and could see it wasn’t that much further to the top, but it got harder and harder. I dug deep and ground out the finishing moves free, and the aid climber in me was gone forever.

In 1976 we came back to D & T during the filming of Bob Carmichael’s “Outside the Arena” . Bob shot a nice color sequence of me leading though this section with the yellow lichens streaking downward.