Mick Tighe, a guide, rescuer, trainer and pioneer who embodies the spirit of Scottish mountaineering, has been announced as this year’s winner of the Scottish Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture 2016.
Mick Tighe
Nominated by the public and his peers as a mountain hero who celebrates achievement, accomplishment and the spirit of adventure, Mick joins previous winners such as Hamish MacInnes, Jimmy Marshall and Myrtle Simpson in the Excellence in Mountain Culture Hall of Fame.
Those who nominated Mick for the award described him as embodying the spirit of Scottish mountaineering, whether through his work as a guide, rescuer, trainer, pioneer of many new routes and latterly with his writings, film work and setting up of the Scottish Mountaineering Heritage Collection. The award will be presented during the Fort William Mountain Festival in February.
Mike Pescod, Chairman of the Highland Mountain Culture Association, organisers of the Festival, said: “Mick embodies the spirit of mountaineering perfectly, from its slightly rebellious side to its social and cultural side. Mick has dedicated his life to mountaineering and has helped countless others do so as well. It was Mick who first came to rescue me after an accident eleven years ago so it is on a very personal level that I say I am delighted that Mick is the recipient of this year’s Mountain Culture Award.
“For the best part of thirty years, alongside running his own business as a mountain guide, Mick has given selfless service to Mountain Rescue as both a member of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team and as National Training Officer for Mountain Rescue in Scotland.
“He has contributed numerous articles and photographs to various climbing and walking publications and for many years he did his annual round of Winter Mountain Safety Lectures throughout the UK for the charity Boots Across Scotland.
“As an inveterate collector, Mick has amassed, perhaps, the largest collection of mountain artefacts, equipment, literature, photographs and other memorabilia in the UK which he donated to create the Scottish Mountain Heritage Collection, of which he is a Trustee. The collection is catalogued and photographed on a website, allowing access to anyone in the world, although it is a long held ambition of Mick’s to house the physical collection in its own museum, rather than his barn!”
Born in Derbyshire, Mick Tighe joined the Royal Marines at the age of seventeen. During his ten years’ service, he qualified as a Mountain and Arctic Warfare Instructor, and spent seven winters in Arctic Norway. After leaving the service, he qualified as a British and International Mountain Guide and worked as an instructor with The Joint Services Mountain Training Centre at Tulloch before starting his own guiding business, Nevis Guides. As well as a member of Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team for nearly thirty years, Mick was the National Training Officer to all of Scotland’s Mountain Rescue Teams for ten years. Having moved to Glen Roy, just north of Fort William, when he left the Marines in 1977, Mick is still there, happily married to his wife Kathy.