We are not sure if they actually mined the ore there, but the good people of Fulpmes in the Stubai area of Austria have been working with iron ore since the Middle Ages. In 1897 a group of local blacksmiths got together to form a co-operative to market their products which, at this time, were mainly farming tools and implements for farming. The co-operative, which became known as Stubai, soon branched out into mountaineering products to cater for the boom in the sport during what has become known as the Golden Age – 1860-ish until the outbreak of World War One. Crampons, ice axes and, later, karabiners were their staple products in the early days and remain pretty much so over a hundred years later since Stubai is still going strong in 2013.

The ice axe we have here in the collection is an Aschenbrenner, named after Austrian Mountain Guide, Peter Aschenbrenner, who developed this style of axe along with Stubai. These axes were by far the most prolific throughout Europe and the UK from their inception in the 1930s right through to the 1980s, when metal shafted axes became the norm.

Irvine Butterfield was a hillwalker, photographer, author, conservationist and friend of the Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection. He donated lots of nice things in his will when he passed away in May 2009 – this ice axe was one of them – thanks Irvine.