A Joy To Use...
Posted by Jeremy Windsor on Jan 7, 2022
Just over a year ago the well known climber and mountaineer Hamish MacInnes passed away at his home in Glencoe. From reading the many tributes and obituaries that followed, it was clear that much of his life had been dedicated to improving mountain safety. As leader of Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team for more than three decades, he would have been involved in countless rescues. But his work didn’t stop there. He not only developed a widely used lightweight stretcher for use in the mountains, but was also instrumental in the founding of the National Search and Rescue Dog Association (NSARDA) and the Scottish Avalanche Information Service (SAIS). But perhaps his most far-reaching contribution to mountain safety was the design and production of a series of groundbreaking all metal ice axes.
Earlier this year, Jim Duff emailed me a photograph of his friend Ian Thomas proudly holding a MacInnes Peck ice axe. Using this image as a starting point, I set out to trace the origins of the axe and with the help of Jim and Ian, learnt to appreciate the impact that those early all metal ice axes had upon those who first used them. Here’s an interview with Jim and Ian that I hope brings this all to life…
Thanks to both of you for talking to me. Before getting on to Hamish and the MacInnes Peck ice axe, can we talk about what you were using before the arrival of the all metal ice axe?
Jim: My first axe was just the standard cheap ash handled axe, just a shortened version of the alpenstock of yore. It was an excellent walking stick, good for glissading, braking, cutting steps and, of course, hand holds in ice. It was virtually useless on vertical ice. An early ascent of the thankfully short steep ice pitch on Great End’s Central Gully - without crampons - meant carving generous steps and incut handholds, an incredibly strenuous and precarious activity.
Winter 1962-63 on Bowfell Buttress - an axe but no crampons!
The axe featured in two attempts to climb Bowfell Buttress, an ascent of Parallel Gully A on Lochnagar in the wild winter of 1962-63 and the first ascent of the Svartisen glacier’s icefall in Norway. The latter nearly saw us die when we were faced with a vertical 50-foot crevasse wall as the only way to get out. Interestingly on that trip we climbed the south face of Store Skagastolstind in the Jotunheim. In 1927, first ascensionists Schlytter, Gunneng and Furuseth described marking the start of the rock face route by leaving an axe wedged in a crack and there it was - a weathered wooden ice axe in two pieces!
Getting on a couple of expeditions in the 70s provided me with two Chouinard Zero’s that were made from laminated bamboo. These beauties were perfect for most Himalayan climbing in those days but again not too happy on steeper ice. Unbelievably, after decades of neglect they ended their lives as my partner’s gardening tools!
From what I’ve read, it seems that Hamish had developed an all-metal ice axe for his own use in the late 1940’s. However it took an incident on Ben Nevis to prompt him into producing an axe for the commercial market. In the recently published, 'The Fox Of Glencoe’ he wrote…
“In the winter of 1958 I was climbing in the North Face of Ben Nevis with my good friend Ian Clough. We were camping below the face when word came that three climbers were overdue from an attempt on Zero Gully. Although it was dark and a blizzard was brewing, we set off and eventually found the climbers, who had fallen over a 1000 feet still roped together. All three were dead; two of the men had broken axes.
In the morning, we hiked up into Zero Gully, now an avalanche chute and discovered the third axe. It had clearly been used as a belay and, being made of wood, had snapped off at snow level. I was angry at myself because I had been climbing with my Message* for nearly ten years and subconsciously knew its potential to avoid just this sort of tragedy…”
Over the course of the next couple of years, the MacInnes Massey ice axe was developed and went on to sell in large numbers across the world. Do you remember when you first heard about an all-metal ice axe? What did you think?
Jim: In the 1960’s Hamish was a mythical denizen from the realm of the gods that is Glencoe. On winter forays in my teens, hitchhiking to Scotland usually setting off on Boxing Day, cadging underage drinks in the Clachaig, occasionally cowering in a corner of Jacksonville, talk of metal-shafted axes was in the air but they were impossibly expensive. Never having had one perhaps explains why I was so taken by Ian’s axe!
South face of Norway's Store Skagastoltind in 1963. An original ice axe from the first ascent in 1927 is still visible between the axes of Jim and his partner
Ian: Queensland, Australia is about as far away from Glencoe as its possible to be and yet even there in the late 1960’s a small group of rock climbers had heard of Hamish MacInnes. In our estimation, his name was up there with Brown, Whillans and Patey. In between wrestling crocodiles we used to pour over imported climbing magazines, usually out of date and often concerned with a curious substance with which we had little or no experience – ice! As it turns out, some of our forebears had climbed through Tasmanian winters and New Zealand summers and some had even ventured to the European Alps. Of course, it didn't matter that we had a tragically short history of climbing and a complete unfamiliarity with big mountains because we had adopted Ed Hillary in the 1950’s and that meant that no matter what the Europeans claimed, we could always say that we reached the ‘top’ first! What alpine gear was available to us during those times had to be imported directly from UK suppliers. When I eventually saw a photograph of MacInnes' axe in Mountain Magazine, the name and the shape screamed out to me. It seemed to exude intimidation and was clearly so much more exciting than, for example, a Stubai or Cassin. I had to have one!
Not content with the MacInnes Massey Ice Axe, MacInnes subsequently teamed up with fellow mountaineer Trevor Peck and following further developments in design and materials produced the MacInnes Peck ice axe towards the end of the 1960’s. Ian, what did you think of the MacInnes Peck Ice Axe? How did you get hold of of one?
Ian: In the early 1970’s I was working for our local rock climbing entrepreneur, Rick White, who had a climbing based business which initially focused on British and European gear such as Stubai, Peck, Clog, Mountain Equipment and Blacks before quickly spurning the Commonwealth and morphing into what really was an antipodean outlet for Chouinard equipment. I think it was in 1972 or 1973 that Rick and a talented young climber Robert (Squeek) Staszewski geared up and tried something out of the box and very un-tropical – the North Face of Fitzroy in Patagonia! Foolishly, Rick left me in charge of his shop and no sooner had his plane cleared the runway I began to rummage through his list of overseas business contacts. On a scribbled sheet of paper in the filing cabinet I found Ken Wilson’s contact details and underneath it a second entry ‘Hamish MacInnes – Glencoe’. I hatched a plot and wrote a short note directly to “H. MacInnes of Glencoe”, asking if we could import his steel axes and if we (i.e. Rick’s business) could perhaps look at a sample.
Jim climbing steep ice on Changabang in 1976. Compared to previous axes the blade of the Chouinard Zero axe was less than 90 degrees. Nevertheless Jim described their use on steep ice as nothing less than, "terrifying"!
Some months later, after Rick had returned from Fitzroy, a box turned up addressed to me personally. Upon opening the rather large tattered package, which clearly had sailed on the cheapest possible shipping route from the UK to Queensland, I found what looked like a second hand MacInnes Peck axe without any handle insulation. A note from Hamish said that I really should have ordered from someone like Ellis Brigham, but in any case, he was willing to send a sample of one spare axe from his workshop; with a bill, I think, for something like 15 pounds plus postage. I hid all of the packaging and billing evidence from Rick’s eagle businessman’s eyes, quickly sent a postal order for the required amount of money back to Scotland. I found a local sporting shop that sold rubber cricket bat handle sleeves and purchased a very Australian themed bright green sleeve that fitted perfectly and I was good to go – but where?
What was your first experience of it?
Ian: This is where things get tricky. I took my axe and crampons off to New Zealand and started up Mt Sefton in the Mt Cook National Park. Back in Queensland we had seen many photographs of New Zealand mountains, and to tell the truth we were rather dismissive even though none of us rock climbers had ever climbed on snow and ice at all. Such is the misplaced arrogance of youth and distance. I also had clearly not read with any comprehension my copies of Styles or Blackshaw’s Mountaincraft and simply stumbled off into the mountains, barely able to strap on my crampons or tie a Tarbuck knot.
Ian on the approach to Blue Lake in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales
My hard learnt and uncomfortable lesson was that the MacInness Peck axe was far too short for any of the pedestrian routes that I could feasibly attempt. To any traditional Kiwi climbers cutting steps with their alpenstocks, I must have looked like a scoliotic supplicant, bent over at 90 degrees, poking at the snow and ice with a ludicrously short stick. In order for the axe to do its job I would obviously have to hold the tool above my head on steep ice and where I was, nobody was climbing anything remotely suitable. Of course even if they were climbing vertical ice I would not have had the technique or skills to use the axe as it was designed. A few days later, after having summited the appropriately named ‘Footstool’ I decided to walk up to Empress Hut on Mt Cook, hoping to find a skilful Kiwi climber who could help me in my quest. Sadly, no one was available and after two days of back breaking plugging across snow slopes and moraines I called it quits, almost threw away the axe in the Hermitage car park, and flew back to Surfers Paradise.
What we haven’t talked about so far was the angle that the pick made with the shaft of the axe. On earlier axes this was set at 90 degrees. However this proved a problem on steep ground as the pick often slid out of its placement. MacInnes’ solution was to reduce the angle to 78 degrees. Ian, can you recall the last time you used your MacInnes Peck Axe? Is it possible to explain what it has meant to you and why you still have it?
Ian: My axe, eventually showed its true worth on a number of ice-climbing trips to Blue Lake in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales in the company of wonderful climbers such as Pete Giles, John Fantini, Phil Cullen and Ray Lassman. The location of Australia’s highest continental crag is sensational and early in the season the ice is hard and steep; but perhaps, at a maximum of 30m high, the iced up granite buttresses are not quite as imposing or as long as some of the Scottish routes I had dreamt about years earlier! Even so, the axe was a joy to use and gave me great pleasure. Just thunking it into a bulging ice wave gave me tremendous satisfaction. I also enjoyed the way other climbers enviously looked at the axe and mistakenly assumed that the owner had skills to match. I am certainly glad that I never tossed it into that dustbin at Mt Cook and it remains one of my most treasured possessions. After 1975 the axe never again saw any steep ice, although once it proved very effective in clearing hail from the roof gutters of my home after a particularly savage storm. The angle of the adze was perfectly suited to the task. No doubt Hamish even thought of that!
In the winter of 1970/71, Hamish and Trevor launched the Terrordactyl. With a much steeper angle between blade and shaft, the new axe made it possible for climbers to move even quicker over steep ground. Hamish would have caught the attention of a generation of climbers when he quipped, "Ian Nicholson of the Creag Dhu Club used Terrordactyls to make successive solo ascents of Point Five Gully and Zero Gully on Ben Nevis and was back down at the pub in time for lunch...". Jim, can you tell me about the first time you encountered it?
Jim: My first up close experience of metal axes came when Colin Reed pulled out his Terrors and sped up the ice wall on the SE face of Changabang in 1976. Freaking out following his lead with my double Chouinards with their tendency to pull out at such vertical ice was a brilliant demonstration of this quantum leap in technique. I bought a pair as soon as I got home!
The advent of the Terror was a revelation, banishing step and handhold cutting and opened up the era of steep ice that could be cruised with apparent ease and safety. The only limit seemed to be the length of one’s neck! This axe, or should I say axes, as for the good stuff two were essential, for a few years made Scottish winter climbing and climbers the ice warriors of the world. Many an aspiring alpinist made the winter pilgrimage to the glens to find out what it was all about!
A MacInnes Peck axe visible beside Chris Bonington's head on the 1975 British Mount Everest South West Face Expedition
Here are some of the routes that these axes enabled me to climb: Point Five on Ben Nevis and Centre Post Direct on Creag Meagaidh, plus many lesser routes and first ascents of The Smear in the Cuillins and the Falls of Glomach. That said, they were hopeless as a walking stick and were tricky as a brake. I’m not sure how one would brake a fall with the ultra curved modern derivations of the Terror!
Also I must sadly mention that these axes have started to damage and disfigure our rock. Not long ago I was scrambling in the Lakes and was mystified by the appearance of climbers who must have been wearing tricouni boots, as evidenced by the fresh scars on the rock. It finally dawned that this was dry tooling, such an eyesore, but probably great fun!
Hamish subsequently wrote,
“The angle of the pick was based on the way a ledge anchor bites into the sea floor and I called my new design the Terrordactyl. Ian (Clough) soon nicknamed it “The Terror” and Paul Nunn quipped that the profile of my head and nose were identical to its angle. Not only did this short, all metal ice took have the strength of an aluminium alloy shaft and a high quality pressed steel head, it also had both an adze and steeply inclined serrated pick…”
The Terrordactyl Ice Axe
News of their success spread fast and for those unable to get hold of them a degree of improvisation was often called for. John Cunningham, an instructor at Glenmore Lodge recalled during the early 70’s…
“Nights in the staff wing were made hideous by mysterious comings and goings and the sound of hammering into the small hours. It was a time when everyone's favourite ice axe underwent a metamorphosis; first a softening by heat, then some bending and shaping to the required angle, followed by some tempering."
Jim, you would have spent many months with Hamish on the 1975 British South West Face Expedition to Mt Everest. By then he would have spent almost thirty years working on his ice axes. Do you remember him talking about them? Can you share any other memories you have of him at that time?
Jim: On the walk in, Hamish was the leader of the notorious ‘B Team’ and that was a perfect time to get to know him a little better. Given this was my first expedition and I’d not climbed for two years (house jobs, six months in the Terrai) you can understand I was somewhat awestruck. Briefly, Hamish came over as independent, focussed and, behind that tough exterior, a shy and warm man. One little foible was his intense distaste of leeches and his original method of dealing with them: plastic over socks sewn onto a pair of over trousers with a substantial ring of salt deployed around his presence.
On that expedition Hamish was in his prime, his mastery of engineering showed in his construction of the imposing ladder bridges in the icefall and the swallow’s nest of his armoured box tents at Camp 4. All this was crucial to the success of the expedition. Hamish’s fingerprints were all over the expedition and, being in his prime, I’m not surprised he was so bitterly disappointed to be left off the summit team list...
Ian Thomas proudly holding his MacInnes Peck ice axe
*Members of the Creagh Dhu Mountaineering Club nicknamed Hamish's ice axe "The Message" on account of the damage it did to soft steel pitons. In Glasgow parlance, "They got the message...".
Thanks Jim and Ian!
If you would like to find out more about mountain medicine why not join the British Mountain Medicine Society? See this link for details.
Why not sign up for one of our Mountain Medicine Winter Webinars? Or our FREE online here.
Comments
Leave a comment.
08/01/2022 @ 11:31:15
Hamish MacInnis brought his newest stretcher to a UK diploma of mountain Medicine course in Glencoe a few years ago. It was great to be able to thank him personally for giving the Terrordactyl to UK climbing. With more modern tools for steep ice I still miss the adze which is so well designed for pulling over the top of a steep ice section onto cruddy scottish snow.
I do recommend reading the Fox of Glencoe.
Reply? Suspend Delete