Call-Out: A Climber’s Tales of Mountain Rescue in Scotland

Call-out is the definitive collection of tales about early mountain rescue in the Highlands of Scotland from Hamish MacInnes - Everest pioneer and arguably the most famous Scottish mountaineer of the twentieth century.

In the late 1960s, MacInnes led the Glencoe Mountain Rescue team and together they developed innovative techniques and equipment in order to save lives - often risking their own in the process - whether night or day, and always at a moment’s notice. He was a central figure in the rescue during the 1963 New Year tragedy in the Cuillins on the Isle of Skye, and led groundbreaking rescues on Buichaille Etive Mor, Ben Nevis, Bidean nam Bian and many other legendary Scottish mountains.

At the heart of the stories in Call-out are the unique characters in the team and wider Glencoe community who demonstrate faultless camaraderie, and - by virtue of MacInnes’s engaging storytelling - inject an almost comical slant into these sometimes-grim accounts of misadventure in the mountains.

The dark allure of the frozen Scottish peaks provides a foreboding backdrop against which we learn of Hamish MacInnes’s concern for human life under even the most extreme conditions. Call-out offers an inspiring portrayal of responsible and dedicated mountaineering practice, which is as pertinent today as ever.

Born in 1930, Hamish Maclnnes OBE is a Scottish mountaineer with a leading climbing record. He has made many first ascents in Scotland, including the 1965 first winter traverse of Skye’s Cuillin Ridge, alongside Tom Patey, Brian Robertson and David Crabbe. In 1973 he climbed the infamous prow of Roraima in Venezuela with Don Whillans, Joe Brown and Mo Anthoine. He has taken part in seven expeditions to the Himalaya, and was deputy leader on Chris Bonington’s 1975 Everest South-West Face expedition on which Dougal Haston and Doug Scott made the first British ascent. In addition to around twenty world-class expeditions, he found time to invent items of advanced mountain-rescue equipment including the MacInnes stretcher and specialised ice-climbing hardware such as the Terrordactyl ice axe.

MacInnes founded the Glencoe Mountain Rescue Team in 1961 and served as team leader for over thirty years. An internationally renowned rescue expert, he also founded the Search and Rescue Dog Association and has been the honorary secretary of the Mountain Rescue Committee of Scotland, an honorary member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club and holds four honorary doctorates. He has authored an impressive thirty-five books, illustrated with his beautiful photography for which he has become renowned, and has also contributed to hundreds of documentaries and films, including The Eiger Sanction, Highlander and The Living Daylights.