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
 

Expeditions

The Alpine Club, the world's first mountaineering club, has members from around the world. Since it was founded in 1857, members have been at the leading edge of worldwide mountaineering development and exploration. We aim to be the club of choice for all mountaineers, providing a forum for sharing experiences and information.

Alpine Club members are constantly researching, organising and participating in expeditions to mountains around the world, so it will come as no surprise to find that amongst our members there is a massive wealth of knowledge about remote areas and expedition organisation. The Alpine Club provides a number of resources that will be useful for those planning or researching expeditions. This page provides links to these resources, and to other sites that are invaluable to expedition planners.

The Alpine Journal is a substantial annual record of mountaineering achievement, if you are planning an expedition it should be on your reading list.

Alpine Club Expeditions

The Alpine Club organises annual expeditions, which are often to remote and little-known mountain areas. These expeditions are open to all members, subject to qualifying criteria and numbers. They can be subsidised by the Montane Alpine Club Climbing Fund. This fund also supports expeditions privately organised by club members. .

Read more about Expedition Reports

The Himalayan Index is a key resource, it has been compiled from journals, magazines and books in the Alpine Club Library

Many expeditions will have been awarded Mount Everest Foundation grants and provided reports. There are some details on the MEF website but the MEF does not hold actual copies. These are distributed to the AC and the organisations listed below (but not the Kew archives).

Royal Geographical Society

The RGS holds copies of all MEF reports as well as many others. Searching is very straightforward and summaries are provided. Reports cover the period 1965 onwards and are very comprehensive. They can be consulted by visiting the RGS library, or copies can be e-mailed.

National Archives at Kew

Not the easiest source of information. The National Archives holds many older documents deposited there from multiple sources.

British Mountaineering Council

This is still in beta form but has some impressive features. It is easy to search although not comprehensive. It includes summaries, and you can download many complete reports as PDFs. The BMC is currently the only readily available source of this information.  The AC is working towards publishng a comprehenve expeditions database which will be be available on-line in due course.

Alan Rouse Sheffield Library

Sheffield library holds a comprehensive archive of mountaineering material, including copies of MEF and other expedition reports. There is a PDF catalogue which can be searched; one of the best ways of quickly identifying peaks and leaders. At present it is up to date only to 2010.

Events Calendar

Janet Johnson Exhibition
From Tuesday 22 September 2015
To Tuesday 27 October 2015
Tuesday 22 September 2015

View Janet’s website for further information and to see the artworks:www.janetjohnsonart.co.uk

Exhibition of water colours and oils by Janet Johnson

Encounters with Rock Snow and Ice - opens same night as the lecture on the Golden Age of Women's climbing.

This second exhibition five years after the first focuses on further encounters with rock,snow and ice in the alpine terrain in Europe and Norway. There will be first encounters with climbing modest 4000 metre peaks inspired by being a member of the club, for an artist who is essentially a skier. Janet grew up in Pennsylvania in the USA where she was skiing down a small hill in her backyard by the age of five.

Janet is an Associate Member of the Club since 2010. The first exhibition she organised was of watercolours and oils based on the Haute Route, first completed by members of the Alpine Club in 1861.

Along side this short exhibition at the Alpine Club, Janet will be exhibiting throughout the year, a group of watercolours titled Arolla Sublime, at the Grand Hotel & Kurhaus in Arolla Switzerland opening in August 2015 and running to August 2016.

The Paintings can be viewed during AC London Lectures or by arrangement with the AC office (+44) 020 7613 0755 during business hours. More photographs are available in an accompanying news article Janet Johnson - Encounters with Rock Snow and Ice

Location London
55/56 Charlotte Road
London
EC2A 3QF
Uk