Hamish Macinnes was a mountaineer who is remembered for his significant first ascents and mountain adventures. These sometimes overshadows his equally significant work to develop mountaineering equipment and mountain rescue techniques, and to train people for the mountains.
On his death in 2020 Hamish’s trustees were keen to find way in which his estate could continue to help people enjoy the mountains that meant so much to him. In the end they decided that the best way to achieve Hamish’s wishes was to donate the whole of his considerable estate to the Scottish Mountaineering Trust.
His trustees saw that the SMT incorporated all the objectives and values that Hamish held dear and were well equipped to use the money in the way Hamish would have wanted. The SMT were glad to accept this responsibility. They see it as a great privilege to perpetuate the memory of the great man through the mountain activities his money will support.
When you’re talking about Hamish’s legacy, it’s hard to know where to begin. It could be on the Matterhorn. For a postwar teenager, just getting from Greenock to Zermatt was quite some achievement. MacInnes got there, then duly went up the Matterhorn, all on his own. In the 1950s and 60s he made many winter first ascents of classic routes, a lot of them in Glencoe and Ben Nevis. Among many other things he was in the team for the first winter traverse of the Cuillin ridge (“the greatest single achievement in British mountaineering”, he thought). And he was no stranger to the greater ranges, with trips to Rakaposhi, Everest and the Caucasus.
It was during this time that he started the Glencoe School of Winter Climbing that introduced many young people to the mountains he loved so much. Alongside the climbing school, MacInnes is recognised as having developed modern mountain rescue in Scotland. The Glencoe rescue team was set up in 1961, and he led it for three decades. In 1965 he co-founded, with his wife Catherine, the Search and Rescue Dog Association. In 1972 he wrote the International Mountain Rescue Handbook, still in use today; in 1988 he was instrumental in setting up the Scottish Avalanche Information Service. On the hardware side, his contribution to mountain safety and skills was just as big. The lightweight alloy MacInnes stretcher is now in at least its seventh generation. In the 1960s he designed and made the first ever all-metal ice axe. This led to his 1970 “Terrordactyl”, one of the two ancestors of the ice climbing tools of today.
Hamish wrote a lot of books – Scottish walkers’ and climbers’ guides, mountain rescue (notably “Callout”, 1973), expedition tales, and even fiction! They still sell, and their royalties will contribute to the Trust funds in the future. He also worked on a number of films as climber, climbing-double or safety officer – notably being trusted with Clint Eastwood’s life in The Eiger Sanction’s most hair-raising scene.
SMT Chairman David Broadhead explaines: “We are delighted that the MacInnes executors have decided to pass Hamish’s estate to the SMT. We recognise that this is a big responsibility, as Hamish was a complete individual steering his own course through life, and the SMT will ensure that his values and memory will live on through the projects we support.”
You can find out more about the man and his adventures in “ Hamish Macinnes:The Fox of Glen Coe” published by the Scottish Mountaineering Press. https://scottishmountaineeringpress.com/product/the-fox-of-glencoe
