2025 Rick Allen Skills Award: APPLICATIONS OPEN

The Rick Allen Skills Award (RASA) is now accepting applications for the 2025 programme.

Established in 2024 with funding from a generous bequest left to the Club by former vice-president Rick Allen, the RASA is designed to help competent young alpinists to progress to longer and more challenging multi-day routes in the Alps and Greater Ranges.

Over seven days, course attendees will climb with guides in a 2:1 climber to guide ratio and complete at least one bivouac. The emphasis of the instruction will be on helping climbers to develop the independent decision-making skills that will allow them to progress to more adventurous and committing routes.

The instruction is subsidised, with the AC covering 75% of the cost. The course also includes a training weekend in the Lake District which applicants should ensure they are able to attend.

Applications are open to established teams of two climbers, of comparable ability and fitness, both of whom are full members of the Alpine Club. Applicants should be in the process of developing competence on alpine routes of AD+, and multi-pitch rock routes of VS/HVS, and have a resumé which reflects this.

Applications will close on 21 March 2025.

You can learn more about the course, including how to submit your application, via the Rick Allen Skills Award Page.

2025 Alpine Club Calendar Goes on Sale

The Alpine Club’s calendar for 2025 brings together a selection of stunning mountain paintings from our collections. The calendar includes works by the likes of ET Compton, Edward Whymper and John Ruskin depicting iconic peaks such as the Aiguille Verte and the Matterhorn.

Alongside key celebrations and holidays, the calendar also lists iconic dates in mountaineering history, allowing you to mark some of alpinism's most important achievements.

The calendar is on sale now via our web shop for the price of £16 (including UK postage and packing). 

It can also be purchased in person at Charlotte Road lecture evenings or by sending a cheque for the correct amount, made payable to 'Alpine Club', to Office Manager, Alpine Club, 55 Charlotte Road, London, EC2A 3QF.

 

 

 

 

2024 AGM & Annual Dinner

Date: Saturday 23 November 2024

By popular request of members, we are returning to The Castle Green Hotel, Kendal, LA9 6RG. The hotel is 2.75 miles from Oxenholme station.

This year's event coincides with the 2024 Kendal Mountain Festival, allowing those members with an interest to take in a talk or film screening during the weekend.

The order of events is:

15:00  AGM in the Kendal Suite.

16:30 - 17:30  Presentations:

Cathy Woodhead on the release of Denise Evans' autobiography 'Reaching Beyond'

Tom Davis-Merry 'Andean Adventures - Greater Ranges Meets in South America'

18:30  Cash bar open in the Function Suite (where the dinner is taking place. Cumbria's finest real ales will be available.

19:30  Dinner. Our principal guest is Tom Livingstone.

^{Livingstone and climbing partner Aleš Česen on the summit of Gasherbrum III following the first ascent of the west ridge} 

Tickets for the three course dinner are £45.00 per person, reduced to £30.00 for those under the age of 40 on the date of the dinner.

Tickets will be posted to members in the two weeks before the event. 

We look forward to seeing you there.

Mathews Unveiled

On 6 July 2024 AC members gathered in Chamonix for the unveiling of the newly restored Mathews Monument. The monument, originally dedicated to AC founder member and former Club president CE Mathews, has been relocated to a position of greater prominence near the entrance of the Couttet Park and rededicated in recognition of the enduring relationship between the town of Chamonix and the Alpine Club.

The AC's Honorary Keeper of Monuments, Charlie Burbridge takes up the story:

After four years of effort the day had finally come to unveil the relocated, restored and rededicated Mathews Monument in Chamonix. We had hoped for poor conditions in the mountains and a patch of sun over the Couttets to encourage a crowd. We were blessed instead by biblical quantities of rain. I'm pleased to report that this did little to dampen the enthusiasm of those who attended to witness our President and the Mayor of Chamonix remove the covers on the new signs next to the wonderfully restored monument.

^{AC President Simon Richardson, Claude Marin and AC Keeper of Monuments Charlie Burbridge stand
with the new bilingual monument information boards}

The Mayor, in good mountaineering tradition, had prepared a wet weather plan and we decanted to the town hall for drinks. Representatives of Chamonix, the Chamonix Guides, the British Mountain Guides and the Alpine Club gathered to listen to a fine speech by the Mayor followed by a response from AC President Simon Richardson.

The monument represents a great deal for the AC, Chamonix and British climbers generally. It is a testament to Charles Mathews' humility that he would be the last person to whom he thought a monument should be raised. I hope he would be pleased to see it resurrected in recognition of the fraternity so aptly described in its inscription:

"Mountain Lovers
To a mountain lover
The members of the alpine fraternity
To one of its members
The brother to one of those who
Assisted the founder
Friends to a very sure friend
He went away, wept by all"

The information signs are lovely. They describe succinctly the genesis of the monument and have a picture of Mathews which has caused some onlookers to describe him as 'smoulderingly handsome'. 

^{The monument in its new site - Photo: Town of Chamonix}

It is interesting to see the vast amount of work that has been completed on the new Couttets hotel complex and to realise how the monument could so easily have been lost forever in the renovations. Instead, it may stand for several more hundred years to represent the enduring affection with which British climbers hold this magnificent range of mountains and the town and people of Chamonix.

Finally, and most importantly, we should acknowledge the tireless work and determination of Claire Burnett and Claude Marin without whom none of this would have been possible.