MacInnes / Wilson The Fox of Glencoe

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-907233-58-6
Verlag: Scottish Mountaineering Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 368 Seiten

The multi-award winning book The Fox of Glencoe chronicles the adventures of the legendary Hamish MacInnes and his achievements in the field of mountaineering. Throughout this rich collection of tales, Hamish's unorthodox character and pragmatic approach to risk and loss are conveyed with wry, elegant style, offering a glimpse into the mind of one of the greatest mountaineers of our time. 'At 3.00am, with headlamps probing the gloom, we crept up Cotopaxi's glaciated flanks, turning sinister-looking crevasses and ascending steep icy walls. It was bitterly cold, and by the time we approached the summit, the wind cut through us like the arrow grass of the plains below. The violet sky was littered with stars and the great expanse of the Amazon was bathed in diffused light as we reached the rim of the vast crater, where an ominous-looking wisp of smoke eddied as if at the behest of an unseen deity.' Few people cram as much into a lifetime as Hamish did, and these memoirs reflect his restless curiosity and ability to marshal loyalty and support for the most outlandish schemes. The result is an eclectic array of tales that include youthful and historic first ascents, a disorganised attempt on Everest with only £40 and a borrowed tent; hunting for treasure in South America; dangling film starts from DIY contraptions off the North Face of the Eiger; hot air ballooning off Ben Nevis; and much else besides. Tenacious and inventive by nature, Hamish also committed much of his life to developing modern alpinism and promoting mountain safety and rescue. His legacy is vividly brought to life in this collection of unseen and retold stories, images and additional narratives from some of his closest friends. A portrait of a life lived to the full, The Fox of Glencoe captures a bygone age and will strike a chord with anyone with a spirit of adventure and who sees possibilities rather than constraints.

Hamish MacInnes was born in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland in 1930. Throughout his long life, he pioneered many new summer and winter routes in Scotland and overseas. Hamish's research on avalanches was a precursor to the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, and he established both the Search and Rescue Dog Association and the Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team, which he also led for many years. His revolutionary MacInnes Stretcher is still in use around the world today, and he is credited with inventing the first all-metal ice axe, which was instrumental in the development of modern alpinism. A prolific author, Hamish wrote 26 books on mountaineering, including the seminal International Mountain Rescue Handbook (1972) and the classic Call Out (1973), in which he recalled his experiences with the Glencoe Mountain Rescue team.

Autoren/Hrsg.

MacInnes, Hamish

Wilson, Deziree

Leseproben

Hamish ‘MacPiton’ using tactics he learned in Austria to peg his way up Porcupine Wall on The Cobbler

© John Cunningham

05. UNCOMMON MEN

I confess to having been in a dilemma for many years about whether to write about the infamous Creagh Dhu Club. I am indebted to Chris Lyons for taking on the daunting task of recording his own account in longhand during his lunch breaks at John Brown’s shipyard in Clydebank and sending it to me. A member of the illustrious club himself, Chris was an accomplished bard and scribe who captured the essence of an era long gone. This exclusive group that enrolled only 132 members in its 45-year history was unique in many ways and survived the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Second World War and post-war austerity.

I, too, have written of my Elysian years with these hard climbers, most of whom had trained as wrestlers. Although I had to dig deep into my memory of over four score years, the time I spent with the Creagh Dhu Club was probably the most memorable of my life, and I was lucky to have such excellent teachers to show me the ropes.

Many of the club’s members toiled amid the grime and smog of the Glasgow shipyards six days a week. On rare days off, they would walk or hitch from the city to tackle some of the hardest routes in Scotland, telling yarns round campfires long into the night as damp clothes steamed, and I, youthful and eager, listened enthralled until the embers reflected the dawn light. These men, among the very best climbers in Scotland, were criticised for being both aggressive and reckless. They were neither, but the ‘yerds’ they worked in were harsh environments and, if you didn’t fight for your rights, you went under. Recklessness implies incompetence, and it was just the opposite. They were supremely physically fit, and I weight-trained with them when climbing was still a recreation for toffs. Many of my first ascents were with Creagh Dhu Club members, usually Bill Smith and John Cunningham, who were some of the leading climbers of their generation. As a rule, we never ‘bagged’ summits after climbing, for fear that we would be classed as Munroists. That was for jessies!

The club members were ardent poachers, and those who later emigrated regularly returned for poaching holidays. After an incident involving an irate and drunken gamekeeper who discharged his 12-bore shotgun and shattered the bus’s rear window, it was agreed that no rifles were allowed on board when there was poached deer in the boot.

Realising that a bus was too public and restrictive for weekend transport, some club members bought motorbikes on which they would race each other down Loch Lomondside. There was some fierce competition from other motorcycle clubs, one of which had a TT champion in their ranks.

Meanwhile, other rock tigers were on the loose. The Ptarmigan Club’s Jock Nimlin was a hammerhead crane driver in Clydebank, and from his lofty cab he could see the hills of Arrochar. At clocking-off time on a Saturday evening, he and his friends would take a tramcar to Milngavie and hike to Balmaha on Loch Lomondside. A friendly local had given them the use of his rowing boat, and they would make their way across the loch at dusk, then hitch a lift on the milk lorry to Tarbet and onwards to The Cobbler, the jewel in the crown of the Arrochar Alps. Jock pioneered many hard routes here, much to the chagrin of the competitive Creagh Dhu Club members. Ardgartan Wall, an easy classic slabby line put up by Jock way back in 1937, had been my first rock climb as a fit 15-year-old, and I was soon hooked on the glinting corrugated folds of The Cobbler’s mica schist walls. Probably the most idyllic and memorable, though not the most difficult, was Whither Whether, which remains a classic to this day. As I meandered up perfect rock on tiny rugosities, I could feel the exposure seeping through the soles of my climbing boots.

The Creagh Dhu Club’s climbing was severely curtailed during the Second World War, but as soon as the restrictions were lifted, some of them formed the vanguard of British post-war Alpinists. In the dark days of the Great Depression, it was almost impossible to obtain equipment and clothing, and ex-army surplus was not yet on the market. En masse, they repaired to their favourite outfitters, the Glasgow Barras market, where they each bought the necessary garb for their prospective Alpine adventures.

John Cunningham

With protracted bargaining, the cost per person was under £1. Furthermore, six lucky members were each given a pair of brand new postman’s trousers. Dressed in these narrow-legged breeks with bright scarlet flashings, they cut dashing figures and were nicknamed the ‘foreskin fusiliers’ by their less fortunate club mates. Some of the others made their own lighter anoraks with blackout material obtained from the Royal Navy.

The club’s first Alpine expedition was a success, and others soon took on some of the most classic routes. There followed ever more difficult ascents, some of which had not been climbed for six years. An attempt was even made on the North Face of the Matterhorn, but it had to be abandoned due to dangerous rockfall.

The club established a base camp just outside Zermatt and gave it the ignominious title The City Dump, a reference to the camp’s insalubrious appearance. They were always glad to return to this urban howff after their sorties in the local mountains, but soon became aware of resentment brewing among the local guides, who couldn’t understand the broad Glaswegian patois and had to suffer the boredom of shepherding tourists around as these hardened interlopers bagged some of the most difficult ice routes in the area.

Moreover, the club members insisted that the numerous scrapes they were involved in were due to circumstances outwith their control. During one attempt of the North Face of Lyskam, several club members were reported missing in a severe electrical storm that was accompanied by heavy snowfall. When the remaining club members were approached by the Swiss Rescue Service and quoted £200 to recover the bodies of their pals, they replied, ‘We’ll take our friends down when the storm clears.’

The Swiss hadn’t realised the toughness and tenacity of the shipyard workers, who had in fact survived the 16-hour long storm and had cut their way across to a ridge offering an escape line. They were met en route back to Zermatt by the Creagh Dhu Club rescue party. ‘We were really worried last night,’ said one. ‘We thought you were going to cost the club a fortune!’

The Creagh Dhu Club outside Achintee Farm in 1942

Back at base, the boys were interrupted by the chief guide and a local gendarme, who had decided that the brash foreigners would be run out of town.

With painstaking care, the gendarme laid down the law: Nobody was allowed to work in Switzerland without a work permit. Nobody was allowed to act as a mountain guide until they were qualified. No qualified mountain guide could be employed in the district without the permission of the chief guide, and so on.

There was muttering from club members. ‘Bloody closed shop,’ said one. ‘Infringement of human rights,’ grumbled another.

Alex Muir, a hard man even by Creagh Dhu Club standards, addressed the gendarme and the chief guide: ‘Gentlemen, Britain has become a poor nation because of the war, but in the future people like us will become your new clients.’

This struck a chord with the guide, but the gendarmes remained unimpressed.

Much beer had been imbibed by now, however, and the detente didn’t last long. Willie Wilkes, recently back from fighting with Tito’s communist revolutionaries in Europe, gate-crashed a formal do for some aspirant guides at a local hotel and was forcibly evicted by the hotel’s owner. When Willie was propelled through the ornately carved doorway, war was declared, and both parties piled out onto a quaint street twinkling with fairy lights.

Soon, more drunken patrons of the aspirant guides’ ball began to pour onto the street—minus their female companions. The Creagh Dhu Club took up position. Big Bill Bernard, a heavyweight wrestler, broke the menacing silence. ‘Friends,’ he grinned, ‘I think we are about to play a starring role in an epic.’

‘I don’t fancy the look of those overhanging balconies,’ ventured Chook, a handy two-fisted scrapper. The balconies, a few feet above street level, were full of sightseers anxious to see what was going on.

‘Aye, it’s a bad place to take a stand,’ agreed Allen Muir, concerned at the number of potential witnesses to the forthcoming brawl. ‘Let’s force our way to the top of the hill, then turn to gain the advantage.’

The tactic paid off. There was general panic among the guides, and they were forced back toward the village centre. Then, Wilkes cut out from the wedge of the Creagh Dhu line and confronted the enemy. A big blond guide using his head as a battering ram carried Wilkes along with him. Meantime, our heroes regrouped, throwing some of the opposition aside before rejoining their mates. A club member called Sunshine managed to rescue a battered Wilkes from the clutches of the burly-looking guide. Sunshine’s girlfriend was a black pudding bender and Sunshine himself had aspirations to become a Peruvian bullfighter, so the guide had little chance.

In the chaos that ensued, the Creagh Dhu Club, masters at fighting, put their...