Hugh McNicholl set up a wee workshop down in Glasgow around 1979, the idea being to manufacture climbing equipment. Unfortunately, the early attempts were a bit of a disaster as his first batch of drive in ice screws broke when being hammered in, leaving Hugh with several hundred unusable screws. (see related items)

Undaunted, Hugh changed the name of his company from Mountain Engineering to Mountain Technology and moved to Glencoe in 1981, opening a little factory which primarily made ice-axes, the only ones made in Scotland at the time. The business went from strength to strength throughout the 1980s and 1990s but Hugh was of an engineering background rather than a businessman, and unfortunately, the money men got the better of him in 2004 and he reluctantly closed down the business. Having married Australian, Mary Rosengran in 1992, Hugh moved to Australia in 2007 where he died prematurely in 2012.

Hugh was a great character and was always on the lookout for new ideas. He’d worked out that hillwalkers, mountaineers and ice climbers all wanted different things from their axes and hammers and the axe we have here is the simple, effective, no nonsense ‘Mountaineer’s Axe’ Hugh also wanted his gear to look good – and it did.

In unused/mint condition, this axe was given to us by David (Spook) Munro who worked with Hugh at Mountain Technology back in the day. Hugh gave the axe to Spook when the factory closed in 2004.