The Alpine Club, the world’s first mountaineering club, was founded in 1857.  For over 150 years, members have been at the leading edge of worldwide mountaineering development and exploration. 

With membership, experienced and aspiring alpinists benefit from a varied meets programme, regional lectures with notable guest speakers, reduced rates at many alpine huts, opportunity to apply for grants to support expeditions, significant discounts at many UK retailers, extensive networking contacts, access to the AC Library and maps - and more! 

Becoming a Member
 

The Rick Allen Skills Award

Rick Allen was one of the world’s finest Himalayan climbers, but sadly he lost his life on K2 in 2021. Rick was a long-standing member of the Alpine Club and left a generous bequest to support the Club’s ongoing work.

Among his many and varied passions, Rick took a great interest in the development of young climbers and the future of British alpinism. In recognition of this, the Alpine Club has chosen to use part of Rick’s bequest to fund a new course with the aim of helping competent young alpinists to progress to longer and more challenging multi-day routes.

Over seven days, course attendees will climb with guides in a 2:1 climber to guide ratio and complete at least one bivouac, ideally on a route rather than at its base. The emphasis of the instruction will be on helping climbers to develop the independent decision-making skills that will allow them to progress to more adventurous and committing routes. This is the approach that Rick took with his own climbing and something we hope he would be proud to see his legacy supporting.

Each year, a total of four places will be available to Full AC members.

 

Applications

The Alpine Club Committee welcomes applications from established teams of two climbers, of comparable ability and fitness, both of whom are full members of the Alpine Club. Applicants should be in the process of developing competence on alpine routes of AD+, and multi-pitch rock routes of VS/HVS, and have a resumé which reflects this.

Details of the 2025 course and the application process will be provided soon. 

 

Additional Requirements

Participants will be required to write a report on their experience for the AC newsletter and/or Alpine Journal. This will aim to inspire/inform future participants.

 

Past Years

The inaugural Rick Allen Skills Award took place in 2024. You can read reports from previous year's attendees below.

2024

 

Remembering Rick

Through his generous personality and inefatigability, Rick had an outsized impact on the Alpine Club. It is a tribute to his generous spirit that he continues to impact the Club, even in death. As time passes, fewer participants of the RASA scheme will have had the chance to know Rick personally. With this in mind, we have curated some memories of Rick below to help RASA attendees to better understand the man from whose bequest they are benefitting.

Rick's obituary from the 2022 Alpine Journal
A tribute to Rick from 2024 RASA participant Richard Ive
A ClubCast tribute to Rick held in 2022 
Rick's account of his ascent of Nanga Parbat's Mazeno Ridge with Sandy Allan