Piolets d'Or Asia 2017
AC Honorary Member Harish Kapadia has just been presented with the Asian Piolets d'Or Lifetime Achievement Award at the celebrations in Seoul, Korea.
Read more: Piolets d'Or Asia 2017
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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2017 UIAA Mountain Protection Award
“It’s all bullshit on Everest these days,” the late Sir Edmund Hillary once said. Wrong animal. Every year 12,000 kg of solid human waste is dumped at Gorak Shep at the head of Nepal’s Khumbu valley, the produce of thousands of mountaineers, trekkers and their entourages of sherpas, porters etc who congregate at Everest Base Camp in the climbing seasons. Unsurprisingly there is a pollution hazard for communities downstream.
Piolets d’Or 2017
This year the Piolets d’Or has set up its base-camp in Grenoble and, in a new format, is taking place in two parts.
At the April event the 9th presentation of the Piolet d’Or Career Award was made to Jeff Lowe, the 8th Honorary AC Member recipient of this award, and the 2016 route awards were announced. These will be presented at the second 2017 Piolets d’Or event in Grenoble in November during the Recontrés Cine Montagne Film Festival.
Sunday 11 December is International Mountain Day.
It sounds like an invitation to go and climb a mountain - and that’s what I’ll probably do, some modest little top in the English Lake District will have to suffice. Maybe there’ll be snow.
But it would be missing the point to think that this UN-designated special day is primarily about climbing. How self-absorbed can you get? No, as of 2003, the 11th of December has been observed every year “to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build alliances that will bring positive change to mountain peoples and environments around the world”.
Those are the UN’s words. No mention of climbing or alpinism, though it is clear from the excellent International Mountain Day website produced by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation that events and activities in mountain areas play an important in raising awareness. Many are planned around the world for Sunday.