Summit-Alpine Club at 150

SUMMIT- 150 YEARS OF THE ALPINE CLUB. By George Band. Pp 256, illustrated, photos, maps, 2006. (Collins, London, GBP 25).

That man, Band (Yes, the name is George Band ! ) has done it again. After his very successful and best selling book on Everest, Band has now produced another winner this time about the history of the Alpine Club. To record 150 years of achievement and happenings in an exciting way is a major challenge which not many would have accepted and executed. Band with his experience of climbing, contact with climbers and his ‘insider’s’ knowledge of the Alpine Club is successful in managing this.

A club is as good as its members, for it is their achievements, interests and help over the years that make a Club what it is today. The Alpine Club is a shining example. Starting with the Matterhorn in 1865 and continuing through World War I and II, many of the Club’s members climbed 8000 m peaks, exposed ridges and steep faces as Band records them in detail. In the 70s there were big walls and the Alpine style climbs. If that was not enough, members of the Club, as Band tells us, have had a very hectic last 20 years. In the last chapter, tributes are paid to current staff and some of the Presidents who have led the Club to the position as it is today, may it be Bob Lawford, the Librarian Emeritus or Lady Dennis Evans, the first lady President of the Club in 1986, Michael Westmacott, a driving force behind the Club’s unique Himalayan Index and Johanna Merz who associated with the Alpine Journal for more than a decade – are all there and rich tributes are paid to them.

The book is a history of our times as what the members of the Alpine Club have done in a century and half is to push the limits of mountaineering to a higher level and brought us its rich traditions. At the same time, the experience and humour of eccentric British mountaineers who rule the roost are well recorded. Without hesitation, this book is literally worth its weight (yes, it weighs a ton!), not in small measure for the photographs, maps and paintings that it contains. But amidst the pleasure of many pictures, my favourite is a small one which shows Mick Fowler climbing ice which has formed due to a leaking pipe at a small railway station. In the middle of the night, he is involved in what seems to be very delicate and high grade ice climbing . This to me represents the spirit which has made the Alpine Club what it is today and climbers like him with such spirit will surely lead the Club to another century.

HARISH KAPADIA