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
 

Kapadia Interviews Go Online

Alpine Club member and Editor of the Himalayan Journal Harish Kapadia has, over a period of nearly two decades, conducted interviews with many notable figures from the world of mountaineering. In 2023, Kapadia formally made a gift of these recordings to the Alpine Club Library.

From December 2023 onwards, we will be releasing these interviews once a week via our YouTube channel so that they can be enjoyed by mountain-enthusiasts throughout the world. Episodes will release on Thursday mornings UK time. If you subscribe to the channel, you will receive a notification when new episodes go live.

The first episode, an interview with Sir Chris Bonington conducted in March 2008, is now online and can be watched below. In the recording, Sir Chris discusses his personal journey into climbing, his 1970 expedition to the south face of Annapurna, the evolution in Himalayan style from siege to alpine and his experience of managing mountaineering teams in a leadership role.

 

 

 The Alpine Club Library holds a wealth of mountaineering material to which we are very pleased to add these recordings.