Scottish mountaineer/inventor, Hamish MacInnes, created the world’s first all-metal ice-axe in the early 1960s, a time when winter climbers had been modifying their old wooden-shafted axes for a decade or so, catering for ever steeper ice climbs, they now had a template for a metal version and the ‘do it yourself’ brigade went to work. The fabulous home-made axe we have here in the collection is based on Hamish’s second metal axe, the MacInnes/Peck (we’ve put the two together for comparison in the picture opposite) and while it looks quite crude it no doubt worked pretty well, the aluminium shaft balancing nicely with the heavy metal head and utilizing the novel ground grooves to give a better grip. Whether or not he made it himself we aren’t sure, but the axe once belonged to Sandy Cousins, stalwart of the Scottish Mountaineering Club and well kent Scottish mountaineer. Sandy’s daughter, Eilidh, kindly passed it on to us along with a few other items – thanks Eilidh.