Ayla Jay Darklis

My introduction to sea cliffs.
Earlier in the year I offered to support @ian.cooper101 on their ridiculous project.

Having never been to Pembroke or any sea cliffs previously this was maybe a not very well thought out on my behalf.

Climbing wise I did very little as I was ridiculously overwhelmed by the situation I’d put myself in.

Day 1 involved getting pumped out of my mind after watching Ian walk up their warm up.
And then the big scary part of learning to dewmar. Which tbh didn’t go that well.
I got very overwhelmed and ended up coming back to the solid floor instead of passing the rebelay. And a lot of ‘what am I doing here’, ‘I’m so out of my depth’ etc etc.

Over the following days we sampled some of Pembrokes choss while I slowly gained a tiny amount of confidence.
On one of Ian’s rest days we found a slab that I’m psyched to come back for when conditions might allow shoes to last slightly longer than single attempts.

All the time the abseil and dewmar out of hollow caves was hanging over me in the background.
‘Why did I say I’d belay’ was on repeat in my head. Then a day of good conditions came and I had to put my big girl pants on.

Just abseiling in nearly caused a panic attack, but thankfully Ian’s psyche for the actual climb distracted me enough from my own terror.

And amazingly I didn’t even have to catch a single fall as send day was one and done, watching them fly up the most insane line I have seen in person.

And then I had some time on my own in the cave realising that this was the trail by fire dewmar session.
The only way out was the rope I’d come down hanging in the mouth of the cave.
The stress of belaying a wild E10 FA faded and the panic returned.
3rd time in my life holding a dewmar and I was on my way out of the cave. Wishing I’d actually passed a rebelay before.

Proud of myself for putting myself out there but maybe I should actually think a little more before offering belays.
Huge thanks to Ian for their patience and support.
And of course massive congratulations on actually sending.
I learnt so much in a really short space of time.
Can we stay inland next time though 😂.

#transclimbers #ukclimbing