GOING SOLO
ling the fear, because if you let fear control you, your muscles are useless.’ Lines himself has been able to trick his
mind in what he calls ‘a dangerous game of self-deceit’ by covering the rocks beneath a climb with moss and bracken. He also talks a lot about being in ‘the zone’, which, for him, is about having a bubble around him whilst he climbs. All he focuses on are the holes directly above and below and, if you have the strength, ‘you have a dogged determination to carry on; you’re in your own space’. Lines is 44 years old and has been soloing
who prepared meticulously and was always in control of both his body and mind. He is also a man with a deep respect and passion for the natural beauty of the places he climbs. Lines was born in Lisburn, near Belfast in
Northern Ireland. When he was a year old his family moved to York, and he spent six or seven years at prep school in North Yorkshire. ‘It was there that I really got into the outdoors’, Lines explains. ‘Walking in the Dales, the Three Peaks and summer camps in the Lake District.’ He chose Gordonstoun to board because that’s where one of
the old boys who came
along on one of their walks had gone. ‘He had a big rucksack with an ice axe on the back’, recalls Lines. ‘I remember thinking, “Oh yes, I want one of them, I want to climb moun- tains”.’ At Gordonstoun he got into hillwalking and completed all of the Munros whilst still at school. ‘For my 14th birthday, I bought myself a copy of Munro’s Tables. I knew the name and number, and height in metres and feet, of every single Munro.’
Lines then graduated to rock climbing but, with no-one to climb with, he spent a lot of the time soloing, climbing harder and harder each time. ‘It also satisfi ed both the part of me that loved climbing and the part of me that enjoyed the solitude,’ says Lines.
ical
Whilst all forms of climbing require phys- strength,
soloing requires an added
degree of mental strength. ‘It’s the difference between walking down the street with your clothes on and without your clothes on,’ says Lines.
‘The famous German climber
Wolfgang Gullich – the stunt double for Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger – said that the mind was the most-important muscle. When you climb with ropes you can climb a lot harder but there’s a real vulnerability to soloing. The hardest
thing is control-
WWW.SCOTTISHFIELD.CO.UK 71
for 25 years. One of the secrets of his longev- ity is constant risk assessment. ‘I have come to realise that, subconsciously, I am probably the greatest risk assessor on the planet,’ he laughs. ‘You have to choose your rock carefully and
assess every move before you make it. You have to work out whether or not you could down- climb if you get stuck at a particular section – it defi nitely isn’t gung-ho.’ Indeed, Lines once decided to climb down
150 feet from a route on the Three Sisters in Glencoe – a mere two feet from the top – because he wasn’t sure of one of the moves. Of course the fact is that even with the best
preparation soloing is dangerous. Whilst Lines doesn’t know anyone close to him who has died,
Left: Time to catch your breath and take in the views at the Pass of Ballater. Inset above: Lines, age 15, with Paul Ewing at the summit of Ben Alder. Below: Barbarella, Ardnamurchan.
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