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, always on the lookout for new ideas and having got a good range of general purpose ice axes on the market, he moved on to the more technical side of things, with the result being the Vertige Technical ice climbing tools that looked good and worked well – the trendy pseudo French name also impressed your mates when you were name dropping in the bar! Les Ward was a client and friend of Mick Tighe’s when he had his mountain guiding company, Nevis Guides. Les’s son kindly donated this axe.