Well, we know where the Scottish Mountaineering Club‘s photographic archive is – in safe storage at Stirling University – which is the good news.

But why isn’t Scotland capitalising on this amazing resource? It would draw attention to and support one of the country’s great and enduring attractions for visitors – its mountains.

The Scottish Mountaieering Club, founded in Glasgow in 1889, is the second oldest in Scotland – by a few months. The Cairngorm Club was first.

Its photographic archive, begun soon after the club itself, holds around 20,000 images, many on glass plates.

Think how mountaineers are equipped today and imagine the practicalities of photographing Scotland’s big mountains in the late 1880s. We’ve all seen the photos of Leigh and Mallory setting off up Everest in tweed jackets and kit that the average weekend leisure walker these days wouldn’t regard as adequate. Add to that the weight and cumbersomeness of tripods and camera gear. Try tanking that up 3,000ft.

Apart from the hidden stories – like this – behind the taking of these images, they are a priceless record of eary photography as well as of the mountains of this country, those who climbed them then and how they did it.

This is a priceless resource – absolutely in line with one of Scotland’s – and Argyll’s – main targets in developing activity tourism. It needs to be seen.

The photograph above is of the ridge in Skye’s Black Cuillins. It is by Arpingstone and is reproduced here under the Creative COmmons licence.