You’ll find a couple of skyhooks elsewhere in the collection. For the non climber and even the climber, they are a pretty scary device that either hooks into a small crack or onto a tiny ledge so that a climber can then stand in a sling attached to it and – hopefully – progress up the rockface. They would be used when there were no adequate hand holds to make progress and no suitable cracks to insert pitons. A talon is basically three skyhooks in one, giving three different sized hooks for a variety of placements, making it somewhat more versatile if no less scary. Dating from the 1970’s, talons were the creation of American mountaineer, Yvon Chouinard, and appropriately this particular one came from our old friend, Art McCarthy, out in California. As we are the Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection we would be remiss in not mentioning the Scottish soul/ motown band from Beauly in the north of Scotland who rejoice in the title: Scooty and the Skyhooks.