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! 

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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.

This group (part of the southern end of the Nalakankar Himal)  lies in the very furthest NW corner of Nepal  (just south of Gurla Mandhata 7694m) geographically in Tibet whilst politically in Nepal.  It is trans-Himalayan rather like Dolpo or Mustang.

Julian Freeman-Attwood led a team comprising AC members Ed Douglas, Nick Colton and Bruce Normand along with Christof Nettekoven.

Base camp at 4982m was set at the end of a 20km valley, the Sakya Khola, on 6th October 2018.  One peak in the group had previously been climbed namely Takphu North but 5 other 6,000m peaks (Til Kang / Takphu Himal and 3 un-named including the highest 6613m) were all climbed by various members of the team.  Ed, Bruce and Christof made the first ascent of Takphu Himal.  Ed and Bruce dealt with first ascent of Til Kang. (these two peaks mark the Tibet frontier).

On Takphu Himal with Peak P2 in background

The 3 un-named peaks within Tibet were ascend by Bruce Normand Solo.  Nick Colton and Julian climbed an unnamed outlier 6055m north of BC.

This was an extremely remote area by any standards, essentially requiring 8 days approach with pack mules and the crossing and re-crossing of the Himalaya via the Nyalu La 5001m.  We thought the weather unexpectedly cold and not exactly the settled conditions normally associated with post monsoon climbing.

Normand route on P1 at 6613m

Our profound thanks go to the assistance received from the Montane Alpine Club Climbing Fund and also to the Mount Everest Foundation.