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
 

Exhibitions

The Club is pleased to be able to use its premises and resources, along with its renowned archive of mountaineering reports, books, art and artefacts to host and curate exhibitions that celebrate mountain history and culture. As well as spotlighting the work of contemporary artists and academics, the Club has also worked to mark key mountaineering anniversaries; bringing together records of the past to keep our history alive and engaging for climbers and the wider community alike.

Individual exhibitions may vary, but most take place at our Charlotte Road Club House.

A full list of past and upcoming exhibitions is shown below.

Exhibition: Kangchenjunga - The Five Treasures of the Snows



Photo by Jakub Michankow (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)

 

"There is no doubt that those who first climb Kangchenjunga will achieve the greatest feat in mountaineering, for it is a mountain which combines in its defenses not only the severe handicaps of wind, weather, and very high altitude, but technical climbing problems and objective dangers of an order even higher than those we encountered on Everest."

 

This is how John Hunt, the leader of the 1953 Mount Everest Expedition, summed up the challenge posed by Kangchenjunga. Yet, just two years on from his team's successful ascent of Everest, his deputy, Charles Evans, on what was supposed to be a reconnaisance expedition, would lead two parties to (just shy) of the summit.

70 years on from that ascent, our new exhibition, Kangchenjunga - The Five Treasures of the Snows, profiles that expedition team, chronicles their ascent using artefacts from the AC and Mountain Heritage Trust Collections and looks at the wider history of the mountain, including the early expeditions of Douglas Freshfield and Aleister Crowley, as well as its position as a holy mountain to local Buddhist communities.

The Second Ice Fall from Camp 2
The summit spire viewed fromJoe Brown & George Band's lunch stop

‘Kangchenjunga - The Five Treasures of the Snows’ has been curated by John Porter and will run at the Alpine Club's Charlotte Road premises from 8 April to 29 May 2025.

There will be an informal opening on the evening of 8 April, coinciding with that evening's lecture, at which a short film about the mountain will be shown. This event is open to all and can be booked by signing up to attend the lecture.

More generally, the exhibition will be open to visitors from 11:00 – 15:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as on London lecture evenings.

Visitors are kindly asked to book in advance using the form below so that we can ensure the necessary level of staffing. Failure to do so may lead to you being turned away.