Kevin Shields
Kevin Shields
Kevin Shields- Disabled Climber
Kevin was born with only partial left hand and later been told he would never even climb a tree. He began hillwalking at a very early age then progressed to scrambling. At the age of 22, after a two year lay-off due to injury he decided that he would take up rock climbing and knew right away that it was for him. The next step was ice climbing with specially adapted ice axes. His potential has been spotted by one of top climbers Scott Muir and he's been progressing ever since.
Kevin's main achievements include:
- Fast & Furious- 2nd hardest route of it's type in the UK
- Pema M9+ Italy
- Solo rock climbing at E4 level
- Numerous ice and mixed climbs in Europe
- Palced 12th out of 50 at the Scottish Mixed Masters Ice Climbing Competition in 2005
- Climbing the White Cliffs of Dover
- Climbed three new hard routes at his local crag: The Calling E1, Point Proven E2, The Fatal Kiss E4
- 'Absence of Hope'- climbed solo, grade E3 6C
- Winner of the Mixed Masters Climbing Competition (November 2006)
- The Dark Side- Grade E4 6a- climbed solo,
All of the climbs are high level regardless of the disability.
In the future Kevin wants to push the limits of disabled climbing as far as possible. He would also like to work towards the negative misconceptions that still surround disabled risk sports. His long term ambitions are to repeat some of Europe's toughest mixed routes as well as comepete at world level in the Ice World Cup.
Photos Copywrights HotAches Productions
Photo thanks to courtesy of Alan Fox
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