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 MemberBelow is a list of Alpine Club Symposia.
Organised by members of The Alpine Club, events focus on the mountains of a particular area, or on a specific aspect of mountaineering. Each symposium runs for a whole day and is typically held at a weekend in the Lake District, North Wales or the Peak District. During the day experts on the subject, including top mountaineers from around the world, give a series of illustrated presentations, creating an event that is both informative and inspiring. Take a look at the impressive list of speakers at recent and forthcoming symposia to see why these events are so popular. The symposia are usually open to members at a discount, as well as non-members.
Symposia are particularly useful for anyone planning an expedition or looking for new places to visit. Many expeditions have started in the bar after a symposium; but be warned: these events can be dangerously inspirational!
Since 2008 Derek has organised numerous exploratory mountaineering expeditions to the Indian Himalaya where he and team members successfully climbed many major peaks for the first time. In 2016 and 2017 he eventually managed to secure climbing permits for the East Karakoram, a sensitive area for which access was severely restricted for non-Indian nationals until relatively recently. In this talk he will describe highlights from his two exploratory expeditions to the Nubra Valley region of Ladakh which resulted in the first ascents of several hitherto unclimbed 6,000 m peaks.