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.

 

The team flew from Delhi to Leh on 22 August and after acclimatising spent 2 days driving to Padam via Kargil.

 

It took a further 2 days to establish our base camp at 4,153m near the confluence of the Temasa Nala and the Korlomshe Tokpo, which we did on 27 August. This was much lower than we had hoped and it was necessary to establish an advance base just below the Korlomshe glacier at 5,100m. This was occupied on 30 August.

Only a small non-climbing team led by Kimikazu Sakamoto in 2012 is known to have entered the Korlomshe Tokpo and they ventured no higher than ~5,100m to photograph the major peaks. From our advance base camp at 5,135m we explored the lower regions of the Korlomshe Glacier and successfully climbed PK 5916 via its glacial SE ridge at Alpine Grade AD, making the first ascent on 1 September (DB, DC, GM). It was climbed by a second team on 4 September (KT, Liaison Officer). We chose to call this peak Kusyabla (Ladakhi for Monk). After exploring the upper glacier we subsequently established a high camp at 5,500m on 7 September. From this camp 3 team members (DB, GM, KT) attempted the impressive ‘Matterhorn-like’ peak at the head of the valley, climbing the prominent SW snow/ice ramp leading to the steep west face which we then climbed until just below the rocky ridge at 5,900m (Alpine D) on 8 September. Time, not technical difficulty, caused us to retreat, which we required 4 full-length abseils. From the high camp on 10 September two members of the party (DB, KT) successfully soloed PK 5947 via its glaciated ENE face and SE ridge at Alpine grade AD to make the first ascent. This peak, which is NNW of Kusyabla, we called Temple (not wishing to use the Ladakhi word, Gompa).

After clearing camps we returned to Padam on 14 September and from there via Leh to Delhi and subsequently back to Europe.

Team: Derek Buckle (Leader), Drew Cook, Gus Morton, Knut Tønsberg, Stuart Worsfold

The team gratefully acknowledges generous financial support from the AC Climbing Fund, the Mount Everest Foundation, and the Austrian Alpine Club. It also acknowledges the gift of equipment/clothing from Bergans and Duffler. Many thanks to Derek Buckle for this report