FAQ Series: How do I get into Alpine Climbing? — Women's Alpine Adventure Club

For a lot of people getting into Alpine Climbing can seem a daunting and difficult step - how do you make the move from climbing in the UK to starting getting to the higher mountains?

Most of the time actually knowing people with the relevant skills or those that share the same ambitions as you can be tricky. Most people now start their climbing career at the wall and so meeting others outside of that bubble might mean branching out a bit.

If you are under 30 the Jonathon Conville Trust is a great way to get started. The courses run each year in Chamonix and are heavily subsidised. This is great way to learn the basics safely and meet others that have the same goals as you. Many people stay on afterwards and complete routes with those they have met on the course.

If you have found a mate that wants to venture into the higher hills completing an Alpine Prep course either in the UK or on the continent is a safe way to get started. Many guides and instructors can offer these as bespoke courses or Plas Y Brenin runs different length courses focusing on Alpine Skills.

Over in the Alps the ISM is the starting place of many British Alpinists, including Trainee BMG Louisa Reynolds. Find a British Mountain Guide here.

Many other guiding companies run ‘intro to alpinism’ courses including Jagged Globe, Frost Guiding, Mountain Tracks and many more! A quick google will come up with many options. When choosing an intro course get recommendations from others, check that the Guides are UIAA approved and look how long they give you for acclimatisation.

However, if you don’t want to go down the Guiding route there are other options (although we would recommend learning skills with a qualified professional for best safety) including joining a club!

Learning off more experienced mates is a great way to make your first foray into the mountains, although often your mate might want to make sure you have the basic skills first! The Alpine Club offer an aspirant membership scheme plus a UK Mountaineers scheme with the intention of progressing through to full membership. See details here. The Austrian Alpine Club also runs skills courses and members trips each year and have a strong British section.

For many of us we learnt of friends of friends and picked up skills as we went along. For my first Alpine Trip I had 2 weeks of a mix of trekking, long sport routes and easy snow plods. During this I followed the boys up things and didn’t really know what I was doing. They had picked up skills and been on trips with older friends through a Uni Club. I came back feeling that I wouldn’t have known what to do if something had happened to them - despite having many years of UK based mountaineering under my belt. For the next couple of trips I started to take a more active interest in the technical skills but didn’t take a leadership or decision making role. I felt that I needed more confidence to do this, therefore I completed a subsidised Alpine Prep course with Plas Y Brenin. This then gave me the confidence to have my own opinions on things and drove the boys mad with ‘Dave Rudkin says..’

However you start getting into Alpine Climbing finding the right people to go with is super important. You need to be on the same page and feel comfortable with each other’s risk assessments and knowledge.

Find out about our club meets here

The BMC have produced a booklet for those new to alpinism available for free download here

Exhausted but clean on an early trip to Chamonix