The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Tributes to master of the mountains
Hamish MacInnes, one of the world’s most famous mountaineers , has died at his Highland home, aged 90.
The man known as the Fox of Glen co ea nd Mac Pit on, who was climbing on the Matterhorn as a teenager and was involved in Sir Chris Bonington’s successful Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition in 1975, was widely regarded as the father of modern mountain rescue.
He was the catalyst for a number of initiatives, such as the Search and Rescue Dog Association and the Avalanche Information Service, and is credited with inventing the first all- metal ice- axe and a lightweight stretch er, known as the MacInnes, which is widely used in mountain rescue.
MacInnes, who was born in Gatehouse of Fleet in Kirk cud bright shire in 1930, worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Clint Eastwood, Sir Sean Conner y and Robert De Niro on such films as The Eiger Sanction, Five Days One Summer and The Mission, but was never happier than when he was tackling a fresh challenge in the Cuillin mountains or the Cairngorms.
He took part in many expeditions, including the first British ascent of the Bonatti Pillar of the Dru in the French Alps.
He also embarked on four expeditions to Mount Everest.
The first of these, in 1953, was his attempt to be the first to conquer the world’s highest mountain, and was an audacious two- man affair which went ahead without permission, visas or money, and whose strategy depended on living off food abandoned by a Swiss expedition the previous year.
But when MacInnes and his friend John Cunningham arrived at base camp, they found a young New Z ealander, Edmund Hillary, and his Sherpa companion, Tenzing Norgay, had beaten them to it.
In 1975, MacInnes was deputy leader of Chris Bon ington ’s Everest expedition, which included such renowned figures as Dougal Haston and Doug Scott. They conquered the south-west face , but MacInnes was nearly killed in an avalanche.
In 2014, he contracted a urinary tract infection which left him suffering from delirium and he was “sec t ioned” into a psychiatric hospital in the Scottish Highlands.
He made multiple attempts to escape , including scaling up the outside of the hospital.
He recovered but was left with no memory of his former life. However, true to type, he rallied.
In 2018, a documentary film was produced for BBC Scotland, titled Final Ascent: The Legend Of Hamish Mac Inn es. Introduced by his friend Sir Michael Palin, it recounted the story of MacInnes’s life and achievements, and how he used archive footage, his photographs and his many books to “recover his memories and rescue himself ”.
Mac Inn es, who was made an OBE and BEM, and was inducted into the Scottish Sport Hall of Fame in 2003, died at home in Glencoe.
John Allen, former head of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team, said: “The Scottish hills are darker and emptier today following the passing of the universally respected Hamish MacInnes.”