We are not sure of the exact year, but we think it was in the late 1970s that Hugh McNicol set up his little manufacturing business down Glasgow way, and called it Mountain Engineering. One of, if not the first things he produced were these warthogs which are a drive in, screw out ice piton. Unfortunately for Hugh, they were not strong enough and had a tendency to snap so he was unable to sell the several hundreds he had made. Mountain Engineering subsequently became Mountain Technology which made, and sold, thousands of ice-axes and hammers in the 1980s and 90s in the new factory in Balluchulish, Glencoe. There was also a new warthog that didn’t break. Hugh kept some of these original warthogs and gave these ones to Mick Tighe somewhere along the way. Very unique items of Scottish mountain history. Mountain Technology got into financial difficulties in the late 1990s and soon went out of business. Having married an Australian girl about the same time, Hugh emigrated to Australia and Scotland lost the ‘all Scottish ice-axe’ and a great Scottish character in one go.