Hamish MacInnes, an influential mountain climber, dies at 90
In May 1953, two young, penniless, poorly equipped Scottish mountaineers hiked to the Everest base camp in the Himalayas hoping to become the first men to reach the summit of the highest mountain on Earth.
Hamish MacInnes was only 22, John Cunningham was 25, all their equipment was in the rucksacks on their backs, they had no authorization from the Nepalese authorities and they couldn’t afford a Sherpa, a local mountain guide.
But they had been climbing in the Scottish Highlands since childhood, and MacInnes had climbed the Matterhorn on the Swiss-Italian border when he was only 16. So they were hoping the first flag atop Everest would be the Saltire, the blue-and-white Scottish flag.
Their dream was shattered when an exhausted but elated New Zealander, Edmund Hillary, and his Sherpa, Nepalese mountain guide Tenzing Norgay, trekked down to the base camp on May 29 with proof they had become the first men to climb the more than 29,000 feet to the top.
From the Everest base camp, MacInnes and his pal decided instead to tackle Pumori, a mountain just five miles west of Everest and still a daunting 23,500-foot ascent. They hoped be the first men to scale it (true climbers do not use the word “conquered,” knowing the mountain will still be there when they’re long gone). They got to within 1,000 feet before extreme weather forced them down. (It was finally climbed in 1962 by a German-Swiss team.)
In 1975, MacInnes was part of a group led by fellow Briton Chris Bonington that reached the summit of Everest for the f irst time via its icyrock southwest face - although Mr. Mac I n ne s himself did not reach the top. He said an avalanche had forced him back when he began choking on powder snow and felt like he was drowning.
“The snow is like a liquid that surges around you,” he told the London Daily Telegraph. “The powder gets in your lungs. And when it stops it freezes and sets like reinforced concrete. You feel helpless. There is nothing you can do, but go with the flow.”
He went on, however, to acclaim as an inventor of gamechanging climbing gear, including the first all-steel ice ax. His foldable mountain rescue stretcher - now known as the MacInnes stretcher - is used in rescues around the world, including by American and allied forces in Afghanistan. His “International Mountain Rescue Handbook,” written in 1972, remains a definitive guide.
He dedicated the rest of his career to mountain rescue, notably in the Glencoe area of the Scottish Highlands, where he made his home for the last 60 years and where he died of cancer on Nov. 23, age 90, according to the London-based Alpine Club. He had a 10-year marriage in the 1960s but no children.
His climbing prowess - he was said to have climbed in plimsolls like a mountain goat but later won the nickname “The Fox of Glencoe” for his cunning rescue strategy - brought him a side career in the movies.
He was a stunt coordinator and adviser on the 1975 film “The Eiger Sanction,” directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. The close-ups were shot in Zion National Park in Utah, while the action on the Eiger mountain in Switzerland - featuring Mr. MacInnes - could be seen in the long shots. Mr. MacInnes was also a fine photographer, and one of his proudest photos showed Eastwood climbing toward him during the filming.