Andy Pollitt

The news broke this week of the sad and premature death of Andy Pollitt one of the great rock climbers. Steve Andrews reflects on climbing with him at his peak.

Steve Andrews reflects on Climbing with Andy Pollitt

It was the middle of a very damp winter in 1984. We had nothing better to do than hitch out to Stony Middleton, drink brews in the café. I had never met Andy Pollitt before but he was the talk of Derbyshire; Andy was working in one of the Sheffield climbing shops for the winter. His day off was Wednesday and he would come down to Stony with one objective – ‘Little Plumb’ an old aid route, recently freed.

Unfortunately it was desperate. One of the hardest routes in the UK at the time and with working all week Andy wasn’t climbing fit. Week after week he would try it every Wednesday, fail every Wednesday and return to the Café in a bad mood. I sat in the café with Andy discussing today’s abortive attempt.

The spring comes, Andy climbs ‘Little Plumb’ and we meet up next at Pen Trwyn which is being rapidly developed from nothing to a major venue courtesy of ‘bolts’.

We spend many long hours talking and it focuses on Gogarth. It’s the ultimate test of British adventure climbing and we go through the list things Andy wants to knock off – gulp!

We are soon heading down towards the water line and first on the list is the second ascent of ‘Alien’. Alien is a huge rightward trending groove, almost a fault line through the overhangs of the vast main cliff, it might be VS other than the groove stops at 50 feet only to restart a few feet higher forming an obvious crux.

It’s a hot humid day, the rock is quiet greasy and Andy climbs easily up to the roof, places some good gear then pulls up towards the resumption of the groove, he casts a long wiry leg out right at head height onto a poor foot hold, tries to pull through – the foot greases off the hold and Andy’s is dangling in space.

Thus the next few hours carry on with Andy greasing off the hold every time, exhausted he comes down for a rest, I tie on and go to look at the problem but the foot hold is key and if he can’t stay on it there’s no chance for me. We retire to Pete’s Eats to lick our wounds.

Undaunted we return the next day to much better climatic conditions. Looking up at the crux there is huge dollops of chalk across the crag where we struggled the previous day. Andy goes up and with ease first time goes round the overlap to establish himself above the roof. He shouts down at me in glee and then cruses up to the stance of Rat Race.

Andy next target is ‘The Big Sleep’ unrepeated at the time and with a big reputation – Ron Fawcett!

Andy leads off and I follow on to the Dinosaur stance, it’s one of the most atmospheric and frightening place I know, the only decent gear at the time was one good friend just in, the pegs had long since rotted away in the constant salt spray of the Irish sea, various other half in rocks were in place. You can half rest your ass on a protruding rock whilst hanging off the friend. Life on the very edge! The Positron head wall is above us to the right, a huge Shield shaped piece of rock with a fearsome reputation. We discuss; the line seems straightforward traverse right on to the wall then follow vague cracks leftward as the wall broadens out until a point where you are, obviously, going to have to make difficult moves right into ‘Positron’ then up the wall to finish.

Andy climbs most of the pitch with ease enjoying the situation until the difficult move right into “Positon” which with his long arms he make look easy, before a romp up to the top of the wall.

Climbing with Andy was an experience, every day was the same, “What’s the biggest most audacious thing we can possibly do today?” then off we go to try, and surprisingly, most of the time we get a result. A case in point was a very wet day in Pete’s Eats when in the late afternoon it just began to dry. Andy says “It’s drying, get in the car” and we head off to Tremadog and on a damp evening, we engage the girdle of ‘Pant Ifan’, obscure in the extreme, other than it held the last aid point on Tremadog, at least until we finished!
We ventured away from our main interest ‘The Main Cliff’ for a foray on Yellow Wall. ‘Ludwig’ a super direct, with impossibly difficult climbing up the left wall of a super overhanging groove leads to a traverse right that had beaten all at this time only ascended with an aid point, so we were off to free it.

I am tied into as much of Yellow Wall as I can get runners into as Andy heads of the stance up the groove. It shears away upward, a wide V-groove of sandy crumbling yellow rock that turns to sand as you touch it. My neck strains to look up it, it overhangs severely, may be as much as 30 degrees. I realise that if Andy falls off and assuming that all the runners hold he will dangle in space near me if I fall off seconding it, I could end up 200 feet up Gogarth and 30 feet from rock with no escape but a prussic on my boot laces.
Andy make steady progress until the holds on the left run out and the line starts to force him right. “I can see where I need to go, over there but there’s no holds to traverse on”. He is may be 6 feet from where holds resume on the other side of the groove.

He tries serval lines high, low, hands on the holds, feet on the holds nothing works. We work it for an hour as Andy gets more frustrated with it. In the end he pulls through 6 feet of rope then, like a feral cat, he leaps across the groove clawing for friction until he gets established on the other side. Fortunately he soon gets some good gear in and continues to the top more easily. I follow with trepidation.

Sitting in Pete’s Eats that evening we write up our days’ work
Andy: “Ludwig now Free”

I add the cryptic comment “No one else ever needs to climb it again!”

Next on the list is ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’:
We had been out climbing on the main cliff and were wandering along the bottom, near the start of ‘Positron’, looking up at all the amazing lines. Andy was giving me a few pointers on various routes in particular the main pitch of ‘Positron’ where he demonstrated the crux moves whilst standing on the ground, I took it all in as I knew it was destined to be useful.

Then as an aside he pointed up at the ‘Positron’ Head Wall. “There is the most amazing flake up there on the right hand side of the lower wall, just wish I could put it together with something but there is no start to it”

I was gob smacked I pulled Andy over to the left and stop him in the huge square cut corner that bounds the left of the wall where ‘Positron’ starts. “Andy – Nothing goes up this corner!” We look at each other in disbelief, our route is born. My years of studying the lines on Gogarth had paid off!

We spent a day investigating our new line, all is solid, we wonder at the lack of gear on the ‘Positron’ Headwall. Andy found a small RP placement high in the flake, there was an old rusty peg in girdle below the head wall and a poor down pointing spike nearby that you can just place a Friend in, that’s it for may be 60 feet of climbing. The square corner below looks more straight forward. Good climbing up to the roof with reasonable gear then a traverse right to where we are going to have to take a hanging stance. After that, straight up to cross ‘Alien’ trend left towards the base of the ‘Positron Head Wall’ from there launch forth up the wall.

We make the long descent to the main cliff which we know by heart now. Andy says the climbing looks OK but that could well mean it’s just sustained 6A if you’re following Andy Pollitt!

“What’s happening” barks Andy from above. “Going to traverse lower down” is my reply. He goes ape with me “It’s easy” followed by many expletives. The rope is now at least vaguely above me as I go out on the thin line it gets thinner and thinner until I just reach the arête. “Tight rope I bark” my nails are in edges and my feet smeared on vertical rock until I fall.

I pendulum round the corner into ‘Positron’ and scramble back on to the rock then climb up to join Andy. He’s still mad at me. I’m just glad to be alive which I wouldn’t have been if I fell off seconding the line he had taken.

It takes a long time to change over the hanging stance but eventually I am secured to the rock and Andy is free to climb. He makes steady progress up the wall, then across the groove of ‘Alien’ with a very delicate balancing move until he joins ‘Transatlantic Crossing’ for a short while as he heads for the base of the ‘Positron Headwall’.

He clips the old peg on ‘Transatlantic Crossing’ before reaching the poor friend placement in the down pointing spike. Taking time he does the best he can as this is the last thing before things get very serious for Andy.

Andy leans out backward looking up at the features he’s going to climb, once he lets go of the last positive hold there is not another positive hold for 25 feet or so until there are 3 successive finger jugs a few feet apart on the wall that lead into ‘Positron’.
We chat amongst ourselves the main topic is the lack of any good gear, if Andy falls from nearly 100 ft. up, there isn’t anything that we can say will stop him before he hits the sea or worse the ledges at the base of the cliff.

The psychological dual begins and Andy tries the moves up and down trying to get more comfortable with the situation. Eventually he establishes himself in the groove only to retreat once more to the security of the holds on ‘Trunk Line’ below the headwall.

Andy’s back high in the vague scoop he’s bridging up I see him feel the flake, you just know once he starts to pull on it there will be total commitment and no way back. He cops out again.

Eventual after much time in the groove he just goes for it, his long wiry legs are flung out on to the wall and elegantly he’s lay backing up the flake of total commitment, miles above the gear. The flake begins to run out but there is still a long way to the finger jugs.

He’s screaming, really screaming “Take me, take me”. I do “Lower me quick” I do.

Andy rests, recovers and composes himself for some time before returning to the wall. This time he creams it and is soon at the top of the flake reaching for the finger jugs. He throws himself into ‘Positron’ the huge diagonal weakness, which is E5 in it’s own right, for sanctuary before continuing to the bucket seat stance directly above, at the head of the wall. The same one we used on ‘The Big Sleep’

That evening we return to the Café and take possession of the New Routes book. We had debated the name long and hard. Andy’s first choice was ‘East Bounded Train’ he likes the of strength and power that goes with it, it’s my choice too but then he gets ‘Skinhead Moonstomp’ is his head “imagine all those skinheads dancing round a fire at night” I don’t like it but it’s his choice, it’s all history now.

When I think back now on this episode I can’t believe what a wonderful route we put up. If the crux were at ground level it would be the best boulder problem in the UK. If it were in the middle of Stanage it would be infinitely the most popular and sort after route or so, at least I think, but if you’re in any doubt here is a more objective assessment the preamble from the current guidebook courtesy of Simon Panton.

30. Skinhead Moonstomp E6 6b *** 88+m
An outrageous adventure that is one of the best E6s in the country. A modern riposte to Positron, it swaggers up the centre of the perfect headwall using that route’s crack as a rest before blasting upwards again to The Big Sleep bucket seat belay. It is not a soft touch and the penalty for those whose confidence falters or whose stamina fails, is long flight time! As you step around leftwards from the Positron platforms there is a huge grey corner straight ahead of you.

There is talk in the modern description of a niche where you can get some gear before embarking on the headwall, I’m glad for modern climber that it’s there, for them. The route is more ascendable with it I’m sure but we certainly did not find it.

Steve Andrews