Objects Database

Five Finger Gully Ice Axe

Accession Number

578.2008.1

Object Name

Five Finger Gully Ice Axe

Created

01/12/2008

Creator

Hermione Cooper

Accession Date

01/12/2008

Brief Description

Five Finger Gully Ice axe. Serrated pick, adze and pointed spike on ferrule with four flat sides. Some rubber left at bottom of shaft.

Materials

metal, rubber

Dimensions

Shaft & ferrule 56.5(l) x 7(cir)cms. Head 31(l) cms. Adze 8(w)cms.

Number Of Objects

1

Colour

silver, black

Provenance

Founder of our collection, Mick Tighe, found this axe in Five Finger Gully on Ben Nevis when out on a mountain rescue call in the 1980’s. It is a classic example of a home/ workshop made axe from an era when gear and gear shops were in short supply and folk still had a ‘ make do and mend’ mentality coupled with a somewhat impecunious lifestyle when compared with the ‘throw away’ society we have today.
Though looking a little crude, the axe is well made and would seem to be very functional with the right bits in the right places. We suspect it might have been made in the 1960’s as it seems to have had some use before it was lost in Five Finger Gully.
We hope the owner wasn’t lost with it—-how nice it would be to meet the person who owned it…thanks in absentia.

Acquisition Date

01/12/2008

Condition Check Date

28/04/2009

Rules

Spectrum : UK Museum documentation standard, V.3.1 2007

Modified

28/04/2009

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