news blog

Montane Alpine Club Climbing Fund Awards Autumn 2017 and Spring 2018

by Malcolm Bass

Thanks to a generous donation from a club member, combined with Alpine Club and Montane recurring funding, we are currently able to support more expeditions than ever before. But we are getting more applications than ever before, and most of them are for appropriate objectives. This is good news in that it shows that exploratory alpinism within the Alpine Club is in rude good health. But it presents problems for the grant giving sub-committee in deciding how best to use the Fund, and sadly we were not able to support a number of interesting expeditions. Before the autumn 2018 deadline the sub-committee will be producing some revised guidelines on how we prioritise expeditions for funding. 

2018 British Janhukot (6805M) Expedition

On the 6^th of June 2018, the British team of Guy Buckingham, Malcolm Bass and Paul Figg succeeded in making the 1^st ascent of the Janhukot in the Garhwal region of the Indian Himalaya via the south west buttress onto the south ridge. This remote and difficult to access mountain lies beyond the well-known peak of Shivling (6543m), at the end of the long Gangotri glacier, 19 km beyond Base Camp.

Alpine Club Young Alpinists Polish Exchange

The Alpine Club is working with the BMC to look at ways of helping young, talented British climbers to improve their skills and knowledge about expedition climbing. This group is known by various names including the ‘Young Alpinists’ and will hopefully transform in the near future into a revitalised Alpine Climbing Group within the Alpine Club. I have been willingly roped in to process to act as an expedition mentor for anyone willing to listen to the ‘Old Bloke’.

Hawthorn-Livingstone Central Alaska 2017

Uisdean Hawthorn and Tom Livingstone went to the Central Alaska Range for 7 weeks in May/June 2017. Unfortunately they were unsuccessful in all their objectives (a new route on the Father and Sons Wall, reaching the summit of Mt. Hunter/Begguya via the Moonflower, and the Slovak Direct on Denali).