The Great Mixed Climbs of Scotland: The Story Continues

With The Great Mixed Climbs of Scotland set for release next month, we’ve been reflecting on the books we’ve released over the past few years on mountaineering in Scotland. From some of the first forays up steeper snow in the mid-19th century, to the technical, bold terrain of the modern era, the stories and characters contained within these pages define what makes Scottish winter climbing — and climbers — so steadfastly unique. In this article, editor Deziree Wilson reaches back in time to examine the threads which connect past to present. 

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One of the things I enjoy most about working for Scottish Mountaineering Press is how interconnected ideas, themes and characters recur throughout our portfolio. I’ve been contemplating this ahead of the launch of Guy Robertson and Hamish Frost’s Great Mixed Climbs of Scotland anthology, which is available to pre-order now and which will feature at the Kendal and Banff Mountain Festivals in November. In this collection of gripping accounts, which are accompanied by sublime contemporary images, there’s a glimpse of the continual evolution of this niche discipline, its origins and ethos, its driving forces. The overarching story is one of cumulative efforts of generations of climbers, each standing on the shoulders of their predecessors. As Guy says, ‘The text draws deeply from the great history and characters that run as the blood of Scottish mixed climbing,’ⁱ sometimes describing first or second ascents of such tour de forces as Guerdon Grooves (IX) in Glen Coe, or The Vicar (VIII) in the Cairngorms.

As Peter Biggar notes in his biography The Steps of a Giant, long before climbing had diversified into discrete disciplines with their own grading systems, there are inklings of a distinct genreⁱⁱ emerging in Harold Raeburn’s essay ‘A Scottish Ice Climb’ⁱⁱⁱ:

In Scotland […] we cannot afford to wait for good weather, which may possibly never come, at least within a reasonable period. We must just take the rough with the smooth, and take our buffeting and our pelting as if we enjoyed it, which, indeed, we do, at least in retrospect […] There may be places and occasions, when the plating of ice and snow which forms so thickly on our crags in spring, may be a means of overcoming difficulties otherwise insurmountable.

The aftermath of the First World War and the Great Depression gave rise to a different breed of climbers from the privileged gentleman mountaineers of the Victorian era. This new generation was exemplified by the Creagh Dhu Club, which Hamish MacInnes writes about with wit and insight in his memoir, The Fox of Glencoe. Tough, working-class men who ‘toiled amid the grime and smog of the Glasgow shipyards six days a week’^iv took solace in the hills to escape the daily privations, and would walk or hitch from the city to tackle some of the hardest routes in the country at that time. Bill Smith, Jonny Cunningham, Jimmy Marshall – all familiar names to anyone with a passing interest in Scottish mountaineering history. Shorter axes, pitons and crampons with front points, forged by Alpine blacksmiths such as Henry Grivel, found a brutal proving ground in Scotland, whose winter protagonists had the requisite bloody-mindedness to open up harder lines.^v

Yet step-cutting was still the norm, its zenith reached in 1960, when, in one week, Jimmy Marshall and Robin Smith used the technique to make six first ascents on Ben Nevis, including the classic Grade Vs Smith’s Route and Orion Direct, as well as the first one-day ascent of Point Five Gully. According to Simon Richardson: ‘That week was the pinnacle of the step-cutting era and brought Scottish winter climbing into the greater climbing consciousness. On a wider scale, these standards were comparable with the rest of the world’.^vi

In 1970, the visionary inventiveness of Hamish MacInnes’s ‘Terrordactyl’ axe revolutionised Scottish climbing. The ‘Terrors’, as they were affectionately called, enabled harder lines to be tackled using a wider range of techniques.

But while torquing, hooking and front-pointing on steeper terrain really began in earnest in the 1970s, Guy points out that Geoffrey Winthrop Young had described Alpine Guides using torquing in his 1920 instructional book, Mountain Craft:

When a vertical or sloping crack in a slab gets too small even to admit a finger, and all other holds are lacking, they force the point of the pick into the crack above their heads, and give a slight outwards and upwards twist of the shaft with the wrist, so that the point of the pick and its square edges are jammed slantwise and upwards in the crack. Holding the shaft rigid in this position, they then raise their weight by sheer strength inside the bent arm, which holds the shaft.^vii 

Conversely, during Murray Hamilton and Kenny Spence’s first ascent of The Citadel (VII,8) on Shelter Stone Crag in 1980, the crux pitches were ascended using gloved hands on rock rather than ice tools!

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

The 1980s and ’90s are often cited as the ‘halcyon days’ of mixed climbing in Scotland, with rapid progression of equipment and techniques, a new generation of climbers in the ranks and objectives coming into focus that reflected a shift in what was considered possible. Greg Strange^viii has commented that when Andy Nisbet began putting up lines on Càrn Etchachan during this time: 

… people were concerned that they weren’t really winter ascents at all, as they just had a dusting of snow and were climbed on frozen turf. Now, of course, it is recognised that these are the ideal conditions […] Through his development of modern mixed, Nisbet opened up a new form of climbing.

Winter climbing has seen yet more dramatic changes over the past 20 years or so, as improvements in protection and training have made steeper, bolder terrain more accessible. Continental-style techniques have been imported, paving the way for a new era of Scottish mixed. Equipment is lighter-weight, leashless, ergonomic axes allow for shaking out and swapping hands, monopoint crampons enable precision footwork on the tiniest rugosity … Meanwhile, some of today’s pioneers have ‘shifted their focus from existing summer lines to tackling previously ignored, overhanging or “winter only” objectives too wet or vegetated to be of interest to rock climbers’.^ix

Nevertheless, a leitmotif runs through each iteration of the sport: traditionally protected routes are climbed ground-up, onsight in wintry conditions.^x Our fickle maritime climate means that some highly prized winter routes are rarely in condition, and success requires both patience and spontaneity – a contradiction that is well served by a thrawn Scottish temperament. The fickleness is part of the appeal, and chasing conditions is all part of the game. For a rocky route to qualify as a winter ascent, there must be sufficient snow, rime or hoar frost. Turf must be frozen, and ‘A good rule of thumb here is that if you’re wondering if it’s been cold enough for long enough, it probably hasn’t.’^xi Although some climbers argue that ethics should be led by the context and overall ‘feel’ of an ascent, ‘it’s the steadfast, stubborn ethical standpoint’^xii that has made the progression of Scottish mixed so unique.

The consensus, then, seems to be that to preserve the integrity of the discipline, a certain esprit de corps must be observed. This reflects the close-knit nature of Scotland’s climbing community, where rules are implicitly, and almost universally, heeded. This sense of community binds the collection of disparate stories and photographs in The Great Mixed Climbs of Scotland together, so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Many of the book’s contributors haven’t been published before but share a common love and respect for Scotland’s mountains and rich climbing history. Their passion and enthusiasm transport the reader into a raw, wild and dynamic environment, whose ‘soul-cleansing, colour-shifting, utterly captivating beauty’ makes any Scottish winter mountain adventure ‘a precious, life-affirming resource’.^xiii

Blair Fyffe could be echoing Raeburn all those years ago, when he says that:

When good conditions, the right partner and decent weather align […] the endless hours of cold, risk, fear and discomfort are conveniently brushed aside […] the chance to tussle with a raw and majestic environment far removed from the often banal and predictable nature of modern life. Surely that is precisely the point?^xiv

The Great Mixed Climbs of Scotland is available to pre-order now here.

ⁱ Robertson, G. and Frost, H., 2025. The Great Mixed Climb of Scotland. Inverness: Scottish Mountaineering Press. p.11.
ⁱⁱ Biggar, P., 2024. The Steps of a Giant. Edinburgh: Scottish Mountaineering Press.
ⁱⁱⁱ Raeburn, H., 1907. ‘A Scottish Ice Climb’. SMCJ, vol.IX, no.52, p153.
^iv MacInnes, H., 2021. The Fox of Glencoe. Inverness: Scottish Mountaineering Press. p.39.
^v Adams, N., 2022. Scottish Winter Climbs West. Edinburgh: Scottish Mountaineering Press. p.17.
^vi Richardson, S., 2007. ‘Scottish Winter Climbing: the last 50 years’. Alpine Journal. 147–158. p.147. Available from: AJ 2007 147-158 Richardson Scotland.pdf
^vii Winthrop Young, G., 1920. Mountain Craft. London: Methuen & Company, Limited.
^viii Richardson, S., 1996. ‘Andy Nisbet Profile’. Climb.
^ix Robertson, G., op. cit. p.20
^x Adams, op. cit.
^xi Fyffe, B., in Robertson G. and Frost, H., op. cit. p.16
^xii Boswell, G., in Robertson, G. and Frost, H., op. cit. p.325.
^xiii Robertson, G., op. cit. p.11.
^xiv Fyffe, B., op. cit.

Images

Guerdon Grooves. ©  Nick Bullock
Raeburn on Spearhead Arete.
MacInnes on Ice with the Terrors.
Andy Nisbet. © Dave McGimpsey
The Great Mixed Climbs of Scotland. ©  Hamish Frost