"Alan was one of those remarkable people that influenced the lives of a generation of outdoor enthusiasts. Not only did he contribute immensely to the Alpine Club during his Presidency and when he was editor of the Alpine Journal but he was also a major player in securing access rights in Scotland and a formidable fighter for what he felt was right in life.
I have only had the pleasure of getting to know him recently and even then mainly through e-mail exchanges since I took over as President. It was typical of him that he was sending me wise e-mails as recently as last month without ever once mentioning to me that he was seriously ill. Alan has been an invaluable source of support to me personally and to the climbing community in general. His passing away is a sad loss to us all." - Mick Fowler

"Alan was without fear of contradiction the outstanding servant and contributor to British Mountaineering of his generation. His energy and brilliant gifts of organisation, to say nothing of his keen inteliigence, mark him out as exceptional. He held so many key positions that to list them all is superfluous, but for me his work whilst BMC President and his re-organisation of the Council, to make it fit for purpose, was his greatest contribution.
He had an oustanding Alpine record, and he also made a great contribution to the development of ski mountaineering in the UK
No automaton, he was alway good company to be with, and whatever the task ir was always tackled with good humour." -
Dennis Gray

"Alan Blackshaw's book, "Mountaineering", became an absolute mainstay to my early mountaineering activities when it was published in 1965 - as my very battered copy will testify. At that time I was a Boy Scout leader taking senior scouts into mountains; I soon became the County Mountaineering Advisor for Essex scouts and very involved wih training scout leaders (and preparing many to qualify for their Mountian Leadership Certificates). Myself and colleagues also led scout expeditions to the Alps, and mountains and icecaps in Iceland and Norway. And what did we know about mountaineering? Not enough despite our own hard-won experiences.

"Mountaineering" gave us definitive methods and techniques. It gave us the basis to develop a lot of consistent good practice for these scout activities in mountainous areas in the UK and elsewhere. It was a book, very timely for us in its appearance. It was only later that I met and came to know Alan, and even later that I learnt about all his own experience and trips that built this bank of knowledge that he had described so well; and which has served us so well. " - Hywel Lloyd

"I was first aware of Alan at Merchant Taylors' School in Liverpool, though he was a few years older than me and would not have known me. He started climbing as a teenager, joined the CC at 20 and the AC at 21 when he was becoming one of the strongest young alpinists in the country. I met up with him over the years but especially from the 1990s at BMC, UIAA and AC meetings where I saw his enormous capacity for work, the clarity of his mind and his great charm and diplomatic skills. He was awarded the OBE for services to mountaineering in 1992 and I can't think of anyone who deserved it more." - Derek Walker

"Alan Blackshaw changed my life. Whether for the better, I sometimes wonder. It was Alan who in late 2003 inveigled me to take on the editorship of the Alpine Journal. He knew what the job involved, for he himself had wielded the editorial blue pencil for three volumes (1968-70), but being a skilful persuader he rather underplayed it. I first knew Alan through the Eagle Ski Club, though more through conviviality in the bars of Scottish hotels on winter meets than time on the hill. We also shared an interest in access issues, I the journalist, he the campaigner. He could be a dogged opponent, as Scottish Natural Heritage discovered when he challenged their somewhat feudal view on rights of access to the hills. Alan advocated a ‘freedom to roam’, and in alliance with Dave Morris of Ramblers Scotland helped secure access laws that are the envy of walkers and climbers south of the border. I will miss the arrival in the post of those heavy A4 envelopes – or their email equivalent – with pages of forensic argument that signalled Blackshaw on another mission. Most of all I shall miss a good friend." - Stephen Goodwin

"Alan Blackshaw and the British Alpine Ski Traverse 1972.
It had all been his idea and with his legendary meticulous attention to detail Alan had co-ordinated the organisation of the “British Alpine Ski Traverse”.   By the Spring of 1972, our home-grown team of eight was poised to start. Anticipating some eight weeks for the five hundred miles or thereabouts, our intended route lay from Kaprun, just north of the Grossglockner, through the Ost Tirol, the Graubunden Alpen, across the Oberland and south to the Valais; then west over the classic Haute Route and thence to the Dauphine and finally south till the snow ran out, taking in ascents of the more important peaks along the way. That we achieved all this in good order, in a season of very unsettled weather, suffering neither accident nor avalanche, was due not only to Alan’s expert navigation but particularly to his cool and careful leadership, commanding the respect and confidence of us all. His considered mountaineering judgement was impeccable, rarely if ever giving rise to dispute, while his charming ability to disarm contention with a good humoured smile endeared him to each and every one of us. He provided a master-class in leadership, his fine judgement and determination best illustrated right at the end when, denied an earlier ascent of Mt Blanc by the weather, we returned to Chamonix, hoping for one final attempt. In what he later admitted were pretty marginal conditions, only Alan’s rope of three made it to the summit.
“Well,” he explained, “I thought we would give it ten minutes more and then, if things seemed no worse, we’d press on.” He was right. And that was Alan, in a nutshell." - John Peacock