I've written a piece on Positron, the infamous E5 on Gogarth's Main Cliff, which will hopefully be out in Climb magazine soon. This route features some atmospheric climbing, and I have very strong memories of when I climbed it with Nathan Lee. It was an overcast day, outrageously windy and freezing cold, and we were both in t-shirts. The waves smashed into the cliff, hands constantly dipped in chalkbags, fingers clasped around pinches. The belayer only had a micro-fleece top and we certainly suffered. Nathan kindly let me have the third pitch and it was a fantastic adventure - made all the better by finding some luxury crag-swag at the belay!
In order to emphasise the writing, I asked Dan Lane to take some photos of a climber on the third pitch, throwing shapes on the headwall. Fellow C.A. Niels Ernst-Williams kindly agreed to be the 'poster boy', and yesterday we abbed in to the headwall of Positron for the shoot. It all went smoothly and proved to be quite an adventure!
Although the conditions weren’t perfect and it was fairly late, we did have enough time for one more route. We opted for Run Fast, Run Free on Upper Tier and I won rock, paper, scissors (sorry Niels - I owe you!).
Below are some of Dan's excellent photos of the route. I was properly laying one on for the next hold!
Run Fast, Run Free (E5 6a). Photo: Dan Lane
Thanks to Dan and Niels for a great day, and hopefully you can enjoy my writing in Climb magazine shortly. Visit Dan’s photography website here.
