FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Sports

In Conversation With Kevin Shields, the Scottish Climber With a Difference

Kevin Shields was born with a partially deformed hand and suffers from epilepsy. He's also one of the finest climbers in Scotland.
Photo by Alan Fox

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

I recently got into climbing and more often than not I find myself limply dropping from the wall, like a dead moth smashed by my own glossy rolled up pessimism. I'm left frustrated at the side while men twice my age and girls half my height tackle the same routes with grace and ease. I try to imagine what I must look like to them; a giraffe thrown off a precipice is the image I'm left with.

Advertisement

Why? I like to think it's because climbing is the sport of the eternal optimist. It's as much about technique as it is sheer metal fortitude. It's that gulp of courage to move past a final crux with your last reserve of power and your body telling you you're done.

In the sport itself there is one climber who I think embodies this idea most: Kevin Shields. Kevin, a Scottish climber from near Glasgow, was born with a partially deformed hand and suffers from epilepsy. If there's one man you could safely say would never get into climbing you'd think it'd be him. But in reality, Kevin is one of Scotland's finest climbers, mentored by Scott Muir and a climbing partner of Dave McLeod. He's taking the sport to new levels and challenging perceptions of disability in the country he climbs in.

I got in touch with Kevin just after he finished a new route in the Scottish Highlands to see how it went and learn more about the confidence of man who has become a climbing legend despite initially being perceived as just 'a wee disabled guy'.

Kev, you've just returned from a new route, how did it go?

It went great. The route that we initially went to try was not in perfect condition. It's not the kind of route that you want to be messing around on if it's not the right condition, because it's got real serious consequences. I did a new route there last year and there was still a line to the left so we just went up and started checking that out and got on that, so it was still a successful day out.

Advertisement

Do you find creating new routes that no one has ever done before increases the thrill and risk of a dangerous climb?

Yeah, well, I guess, for me it's not really about the thrill of doing it; I definitely really enjoy trying to control the risk. So, knowing that I'm in a position where if I make a mistake or if I fall, there's going to be real serious consequences. The mental side of controlling that is where the real interest for me lies. With the disability that I have I can't push myself to the same level as some people strength-wise, so I find using my mind to try and push through the grades is where the interest for me lies; the risk is a kind of side-affect of that.

Do you think this alternative drive, the mental side of it, is a skill that your disability has forced you to harness?

I've probably been lucky, in any event; I've been born with this wee disability and, like you say, it allows me to have that extra bit of mental strength, or whatever it is, to push through on things. I do find some times that I've been on routes where somebody with two hands can place protection in the rock, but I can't so I've got to push a bit further than I guess most people would do. But, there's so many tricks and bits and pieces that you can do, that I've learned myself just to try and combat the rising fear in things when that stuff does happen. Which inevitably it does.

Does that make your technique one of the most unique in the country, not by default but by what you have to overcome? I think that's part of what I find so interesting about climbing. It's different for everybody that does it. Everybody's got different reasons for doing it. For me, I'm looking at routes and having to be sometimes a bit more creative than [other] guys, and I can do something that's quite hard. I definitely find that I'm looking at things in a pretty different way, I guess, and that makes it interesting.

Advertisement

As a climber you've known more success than failure, but you did fall from a route up a frozen waterfall in Glen Nevis five years ago. How did that accident affect your climbing afterward? There's part of me that really wishes we'd actually got the fall on film that day, but part of me is quite glad that I've not seen it before. It was pretty strange, up until that day the accident happened I'd been pushing myself harder than I'd ever done in my life. [I was] taking more and more risks with the stuff that I was doing, and we got this really spectacular, one-in-a-million winter. There's part of me that was really gutted I fell because it put me out for the rest of the season. But part of me was relieved, pushing like that, you know, I was aware it could come to a head and probably would do. Especially when I was soloing a lot at the time. I was pretty lucky to survive and quite glad that I had my accident and learned from it.

It seems mental that anyone would climb a frozen waterfall. Is that just me?

It's probably not just you. I'd never seen it formed before and it might never form again for another 40, 50 years. So I don't regret taking the chance, at least trying to climb it. If I never tried I'd regret that I hadn't at least tried and fair enough, I've wrecked myself in doing that. I'm glad I took the challenge.

It sounds like it was a bit of a reality check for you at the time? Is that pre-fall mentality a constant that makes you forget the boundaries of your limits?

Advertisement

That's a good question. I don't know if it's about forgetting the boundaries, it's about just seeing how far you can actually push yourself and your capabilities. I still don't think I've found exactly how far I can go. But the worrying thing with doing stuff like this I guess is you can only find how far you can go by it going really wrong. As long as you're willing to accept that, then that's it. I think that holds a lot of people back, thinking 'what could go wrong?'.I'd rather think about what could happen in a positive way rather than about what could happen in a negative way.

That's the problem with us pessimists. So you're still upping the gears?

Oh yeah, totally. Aye.

No reservation there whatsoever…

There's always something else to do, always something else to aim for.

How did you get in to climbing?

I grew up south of Glasgow, so it's not as if I was in the Highlands, but I just started hillwalking. Just before I turned 21 I got my epilepsy, and once I recovered from that I started getting into scrambling and things. I always wanted to join the army and that never happened because of my disability; I kind of felt like having got into scrambling and then starting to get into climbing I found something where I could push myself and try and see what I was capable of. And that's what I really wanted. Climbing provided that. It gave adventure, it gave risk, things like that. That's what I was really searching for so that's why I got into it as much as I did.

Advertisement

Is that why you wanted to get into the army? A sense of risk and adventure?

Partly that, and a lot of my family way, way back, through the generations had all served their time. I was brought up with that belief, that it was what I was going to do. I wanted to join and get into special forces but, like I say, that never happened unfortunately.

So you threw yourself into climbing?

Completely, aye. There was no one to climb with at first, because nobody wants to climb with somebody with one hand and epilepsy! So I just started soloing right away, I was probably lucky to survive that phase, actually.

You would think more climbers would want to climb with you given your disability, so as to look out for you?

It's a strange thing finding climbing partners. For me, in particular, I'm really, really picky with the people that I climb with. I've only got maybe five people I trust enough to work with. There's plenty of folk I could climb with but I just don't feel comfortable with people unless I can be completely switched off and focus on my climbing. I'm looking for people that basically, when the shit hits the fan they can kind of deal with things and vice versa.

The day I had my accident I was climbing with Dave MacLeod. Dave's pretty much the best climber in the country and one of the best in the world. I was climbing with him that day and he carried me, from where I had my accident, back to the car and took me to hospital. A year later, he had an accident where he was dropped. I was there up above taking pictures and I abseiled straight off and I carried him into hospital that day. It's that kind of thing, knowing that you can rely on each other to be able to sort stuff out when it goes wrong. It makes a big, big difference to what you're capable of because you're not thinking 'If I fall here they can't handle this' you're focussing purely on the climbing. You achieve a lot more and you bond a lot more with people when you do that as well.

Advertisement

So much of what's asked of climbers today is about climbing new routes and making a name for yourself. How much does 'legend' play into your climbing?

Yeah, totally for me, because a lot of people seemed to have this attitude that was like, 'Oh, it's just a wee disabled guy trying to do a bit of climbing and that's nice' but beyond that I was trying to prove that I was more than that. Not just that I can compete with able-bodied people, but I could go and climb harder than them. So there was a bit of that at first. Once I'd repeated a lot of harder routes, and other people's routes, that's when finding new routes became interesting to me. I just find the whole process really interesting. You can spend days and days and days searching for these things and then cleaning off the moss and loose rock before eventually getting on to the route. I find that really enjoyable, because it's something nobody's done before, you're the first person up there and you get to name it… within reason.

With that in mind, what have you christened your most recent new route?

Senior Moment. It's quite sketchy: you're on a slab so there's not a lot to hold on to and the gear was pretty crap. I was so focussed on the climbing that I forgot to place this vital bit of gear just before this upper crux and I did nae realise 'til it was too late. It took a few minutes to get my head sorted. I just couldn't believe I'd forgotten to place this bit of gear because if I'd have fallen it could have been pretty bad, or worse.

Sounds fitting. Great chatting with you, Kev.

@Bainosaurus