After this rescue it was recommended that more rock-climbing should be included in the training programme. When the skeleton team had arrived at the top of Tower Ridge, only four were competent enough to descend to the gap - an optimistic estimate according to some observers. It was also recommended that the team should be at full strength at Easter.

Kinloss may have been deficient in rock climbers at this time (although few of the men who have served with mountain rescue could have equalled Brown's and Whillans' performance on this last accident) but they must have been proficient in other respects. Only a week after the Emery incident a rescue party from Glenmore Lodge, having administered First Aid to a climber injured in the Cairngorms and strapped him on a stretcher, were forced to wait for the arrival of Kinloss as the civilians hadn't sufficient experience of lowering down steep slopes at night.

A similar situation occurred on Skye the following year when a civilian team from Portree were greatly impressed by the increased speed of the operation once the RAF arrived on the scene. They were, indeed, commended by the Inspector of police at Portree for their 'tremendous help'. This accident was also interesting by virtue of the injuries sustained by one of the casualties.

Two men had been glissading down the snow-covered Alasdair stone-shoot when they lost control. The survivor, who reached Glen Brittle and turned out the rescue team, had, in addition to three fractured ribs, a puncture in the left thigh. Whether this was the work of an axe pick is unrecorded, but Mr D G Duff, surgeon superintendent at the Fort William hospital for a long period, says that he has stitched up many wounds which were inflicted by axes during falls.

Most novices have slings on their axes. If they lose control, they lose their grip on the shaft but the axe is still attached to them by the wrist sling - a lethal weapon. Guides don't use a sling, for another great disadvantage of it is that on an ince-climb one is constantly changing hands. The best ice climber is ambidextrous when cutting steps. It is advisable for novices to learn their snow-craft with a sling on the axe, but they should not venture on to potentially dangerous slopes until they have mastered its use, by which time they should be capable of retaining a grip on it without a sling in an emergency.

These rescues didn't call for rock climbing ability and it wasn't until eighteen months after the Emery accident on Ben Nevis that the team was called on to demonstrate its improved efficiency in that field. The occasion was an accident on the Chancellor, one of the peaks on the Aonach Eagach, which forms the northern wall of Glen Coe.

The team was away fifteen minutes after the police came through on the telephone. When they arrived in Glen Coe they were told that four civilians had taken blankets and First Aid to the fallen men, of whom there were two; alive but injured.

Eighteen of the team set off up the steep broken face of the Aonach Eagach in the dark and carrying two stretchers. It is hardly surprising that they failed to reach the casualties, but they persisted for six hours until, at 4.0 am, they gave up and bivouacked for two hours on top of the ridge, at three thousand feet.

They started again at dawn, and sighted the casualties at 7.30 am. Half an hour later a Continue to Page 7