Mountaineer, writer, documentary maker and founder of the Glencoe Rescue Team, Hamish McInnes first started climbing with the Glasgow-based Creag Dhu club, becoming a legend in his early twenties. His first ascent of Zero Gully on Ben Nevis in 1957 was one of the breakthroughs in British mountaineering. Abroad, he climbed in the Alps, New Zealand, the Caucasus and the Himalayas. Maclaurin, himself a keen climber, met MacInnes at his home in Glencoe where he made sketches of him and the surrounding mountains.