One swallow might not make a summer, but the year’s first trip to Gogarth certainly marks a significant watershed in seeing off the winter. The lure of promised sunshine out West had Andy and me trundling through greyness along the mercifully quiet A55, eschewing the overcast Ormes, and arriving to find South Stack breezy and cool, but cloudless. Well done Met Office.

High tide at noon, and too cold out of the sun, meant Main Cliff was out of the question, and anyway – both of us were feeling a bit trad-rusty after the prolonged winter. Castell Helen was the obvious venue, but that would surely doom us to revisiting well-travelled territory – or maybe not. The guide offered the prospect of The Castell Helen Girdle, 160m of left-to-right E1 adventuring finishing on Yellow Wall.

A couple of teams were already in situ, leaving the world’s best behaved crag-dog on guard duty.

In reality, there wasn’t so much “new (to us)” climbing, as you start up Pel / Freebird to the half-height ledge and then head across the airy break of North West Passage, to join Where Puffins Daren’t to press on around the corner into less familiar territory.

Here’s Andy questing around into new territory…

… with seals…

… and kayakers playing in the millpond below.

The Rockfax somewhat understates the lengths of the traversing pitches: getting on for a hundred metres 4c “walk on the wild side”, but scores over the definitive Ground Up guide when it eventually comes to resuming vertical progress for the final pitch. The original 4c groove has long disappeared into the deep, and you now climb the slightly crumbly 5b wall to the right of the resulting rock scar. Honours even, and shows the benefit of assembling as much information as possible and having a digital repository that can be updated. Here’s the view of Andy linking the last couple of pitches…

… and questing up the fragile wall right of the rock scar.

Back down for some 100% new ground – Limping Lisa, E2 5b, threads a devious path through the upper wall between Atlantis and Rap. Great climbing and quite bold at 1/3 height (pack your brass!)…

and at the top.

I was very thankful for the trail of chalk from the previous team!

As I’d been leading Limping Lisa, a team had been having a bit of a struggle on the final pitch of Atlantis, and Andy and I realised that neither of us had actually ever done it (usually opting for the uber classic True Moments combo). Only given E1 5c, we were soon able to sympathise with the other team’s travails. The entry groove is nails! Andy sketched artfully up the arete and I took a jink out left (as advised in the guide).

Three new (to us) routes and over 200m of E1/2 climbing (plus a bit of extreme ledge-shuffling) – not a bad day. To be honest, the climbing itself is secondary to the splash of the sea, whiff of ozone, sun-on-your-face and the company of spectating seals. Gogarth delivers again, and I found myself humming Elbow’s “One day like this…” – I share the sentiment, though I’m afraid I’m more greedy than once a year!

Back at the gearing up spot – It’s a dogs life!