Climbing
Scales of Power: Photographer and Climber Hamish Frost
Photographer and climber Hamish Frost keeps pace with the world’s most ambitious winter athletes in the most testing of environments, capturing moments of magic in the mountains
At the end of 2023, Hamish Frost found himself traversing a narrow, kilometre-long ridge in the far north-west corner of Nepal while attempting to climb a remote, unclimbed 6,000m peak. With marginal protection and a need to move quickly, for much of the time his only defence against a life-threatening fall was the rope attaching him to his good friend and fellow climber Matt Glenn. If one of them were to step through a cornice and stumble off the side of the ridge, the theory was that the other would throw themselves off the opposite side to balance the pair and prevent them both from falling. It wasn’t a strategy either wanted to put into practice.
Having woken at 4am to find their belongings coated in a layer of ice, Frost and Glenn now watched as mini avalanches triggered by recent snowfall went off around them. The pair stripped down the kit they’d carry to the bare essentials, but Frost’s cold fingers were never far from his camera. He documented the adventure and released a half-hour film about it – Salimor Khola: A Climbing Expedition to an Unexplored Valleyin the Himalayas – in May this year. It was a way for the rest of the world to understand the combination of gruelling physical exertion, breathtaking beauty and deep friendship that has led Frost to dedicate his life to exploring and photographing winter sports.
Hamish Frost: On the edge of the Himalayas
© Adam Raja
“Climbing and taking photos have always gone hand in hand for me,” he says, now safely back at home in Glasgow. “I have a real draw to take photos and document any time I spend in the mountains.”
With a name well-suited to his work in some of the world’s iciest environments, Frost is one of Europe’s leading adventure sports photographers. His dramatic, beautiful images transport you to high-altitude, sub-zero landscapes most of us will only ever experience remotely, accessing the almost inaccessible places where superlative winter climbers come alive.
I have a real draw to take photos and document any time I spend in the mountains
The moments of exhaustion and euphoria that Frost captures are now used by countless brands and pro climbers, mountaineers, skiers and runners around the world. But it’s in his adopted home of Scotland that he concentrates most of his time, travelling to remote spots in the country’s wilderness with his fellow adventurers to document some of the country’s most brutal winter climbing, on routes less explored, in landscape that feels wild and untamed.
“For me, it’s that unknown,” Frost says. “You’re not doing a route that’s in a guidebook, where you know what the difficulty level is going to be, or if it’s even possible; you’re going out and just looking at the cliff in front of you. And it’s just beautiful, visually stunning. There are so many opportunities to photograph new places, so much potential to climb new routes or ski new lines.”
Frost is accustomed to 4am starts, long drives, frozen fingers and beard icicles. And in order to stay a step ahead of the athletes he’s capturing, maintaining peak physical fitness is essential, so climbing, running and strength training are built into his weekly routine.
Winter storm over Suilven, 2017
© Hamish Frost
To get the perfect vantage point for his shots, Frost drives crampons and ice axes through snow, ice or frozen turf to establish an anchor from which to dangle off the side of a mountain. There, suspended from a rope, he might spend hours watching climbers crawl up a rock face as he endures snowfall, spindrift and disconcerting gusts of wind, waiting for the perfect shot.
“It’s pretty unpleasant a lot of the time,” Frost says. “You stand there belaying in the freezing cold, tons of snow coming down, and you’re saying to yourself, ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ But then the climbing itself is a sort of meditative state you go into, and you kind of block everything else out. You can be in that state for two or three hours. Then you get to the top and there’s just this total release.”
This isn’t a career that Frost envisaged for himself while growing up; despite his Scottish first name, he was raised in Cambridgeshire’s flatlands and had a natural aversion to heights. He moved to Scotland in his late teens to study at the University of Glasgow, but it wasn’t until a neck injury stopped him playing rugby that he began to explore ski-touring and found a devoted community of Scottish skiers. With no formal training in photography, but a keen interest in the medium, he started taking his camera along.
Sunburst over Glen Nevis, 2022
© Hamish Frost
“I loved it,” Frost says. “In spring, there was still snow up high and it wouldn’t get dark till 9pm. So, after work in Perth, I’d often drive across to Glencoe, meet a friend, climb a hill in time for sunset, then ski down and drive the two or three hours [back home to] Glasgow.” It was when Frost’s pictures started to gain traction on Facebook ski groups, almost 10 years ago, that he began toying with the idea of leaving his office-based job as an engineer. “The idea crept into my head,” he says. “I didn’t expect it to work out, but I felt I needed to try. It was a gamble.”
He also started climbing. As his skill level increased and he became more ingrained in the outdoor community, Frost had to navigate not only the Scottish mountains but a new social world – as a gay man, he wasn’t certain he’d be accepted.
My experiences when climbing have helped me re-evaluate success
Frost had come out while at university, but for a long time he only felt comfortable telling a few close and trusted friends on the outdoor scene. “Generally, climbers are pretty liberal and forward-thinking types, but it always has been a very straight, white, male-dominated environment,” he says. “If you’re young and gay or queer, or however you want to label yourself, quite often society teaches you to hide that part of yourself. I almost felt that I had to prove my worth to people before I could come out.”
Eventually, he was asked by a friend to appear in one of a series of films spotlighting diversity in the outdoors. “I was keen to do it because I knew I wanted to come out for my own personal mental wellbeing,” he says. “It’s quite exhausting hiding that side of yourself. A barrier to me coming out had been the lack of queer role models in the outdoors community. I realised that I could potentially be a role model for other people and make it slightly easier for someone else to come out, so I knew it was a worthwhile, positive thing to do.”
Number Two Gully on Ben Nevis, 2022
© Hamish Frost
The film – the third episode in the Ascension Series commissioned by Berghaus – was released in summer 2023. To this day, Frost receives messages from others saying how his coming out has made them feel more seen and welcome in the outdoors, and also from those who say it opened their minds to what others might be experiencing in the outdoor community.
“It’s also improved my friendships with other people I climb with, because I’m not hiding a part of myself,” Frost says. “I’m much happier as a result. In the end, it was the most positive thing I think I’ve ever been involved in. But it was pretty terrifying at the time.”
Frost’s passion for the mountains, and the community he’s become a part of, have galvanised him to conquer his fears over and over again. It’s an ongoing process. The 37-year-old, who considers himself “pretty risk-averse”, admits he still feels scared at times, always aware that even the most careful planning can’t avert close calls.
Putting yourself in challenging situations is when you really learn what you’re capable of
He’s had a few. During the trip to Nepal, after successfully traversing that seemingly endless, perilous ridge and standing just 300m from the summit, Frost and Glenn witnessed a sizeable avalanche metres away from them on the slope they were about to climb. They were forced to turn back.
Some close shaves have happened closer to home. In January 2024, a fall on a mixed climb on Cùl Mòr in north-west Scotland, the dislodgement of a piece of protection equipment from an icy crack, saw Frost plummet some 15m past the belay. He emerged relatively unscathed and is now recovering at home from minor ankle surgery ahead of the busy winter season.
But Frost says he can see the benefit of having experienced his most testing times on the mountain; the lessons learned could positively impact his life off it, too. “Those situations have helped me re-evaluate what success and failure are,” he says. “Sometimes you get it right and it’s really satisfying, and sometimes you’ll get it wrong, or you’ll come away having not climbed anything that day, but you’ll have learned something. For me, it’s all about the experience. Putting yourself in those challenging situations – that’s when you really learn what you’re capable of.”