A WORLD-famous climber from South Lakeland has become the first person to solo climb Jordan's iconic 350-metre-high Pillar of Wisdom.

Leo Houlding, 35, from Staveley, ascended the colossal sandstone tower in collaboration with Playstation for the launch of its new game – Unchartered 4.

Mr Houlding said he did the climb after Playstation challenged him to come up with his own 'unchartered adventure'.

"It's definitely one of the biggest challenges of my life," said Mr Houlding, who is currently snowkiting 1,000 miles across Greenland.

"World records can always be broken but firsts can never be taken away from you."

The Pillar of Wisdom lies with in Jordan's Wadi Rum - also known as the the Valley of the Moon – in the south of the country, and peaks out of the Jordanian desert at a massive 350 metres, 50 metres taller than the Eiffel Tower.

Mr Houlding reached the summit in under two hours.

He free-climbed the majority of the structure, but due to the volatile nature of the crumbling sandstone surface, some parts were simply too dangerous to scale unaided.

"I free soloed most of the route, but I used a rope on a few sections where the rock was really loose or really hard," he said. "Being up on a face like that so big and so remote, so exposed, alone, not tied into the cliff it’s a really powerful feeling.

"To be out here in this ancient landscape it really has an authentic feel to it and connecting to that environment and being up there, up on that huge wall, it’s a lifetime accomplishment.”

On the sections where he did use a rope he "self belayed" - attaching himself to the cliff and paying out the rope

"There comes a point when you're out there having an epic and you have no choice but to keep going – you either curl up in a ball and die or you find the energy to keep going.

"You have got to be extremely cautious, you've got to be in the right kind of head space, you have got to be physically fit and extremely diligent that you don't make any mistakes – you try not to think about the mortal risks.

"When you get to the top it's not an adrenaline rush, it's this strange feeling of deep, almost spiritual, accomplishment."

He described the view from the flat top of the pillar as "epic" and said it was up there with the top ten views he had ever seen in the world.