Exhibition: Kangchenjunga - The Five Treasures of the Snows

^{Photo by Jakub Michankow (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license)}

"There is no doubt that those who first climb Kangchenjunga will achieve the greatest feat in mountaineering, for it is a mountain which combines in its defenses not only the severe handicaps of wind, weather, and very high altitude, but technical climbing problems and objective dangers of an order even higher than those we encountered on Everest."

This is how John Hunt, the leader of the 1953 Mount Everest Expedition, summed up the challenge posed by Kangchenjunga. Yet, just two years on from his team's successful ascent of Everest, his deputy, Charles Evans, on what was supposed to be a reconnaisance expedition, would lead two parties to (just shy) of the summit.

70 years on from that ascent, our new exhibition, Kangchenjunga - The Five Treasures of the Snows, profiles that expedition team, chronicles their ascent using artefacts from the AC and Mountain Heritage Trust Collections and looks at the wider history of the mountain, including the early expeditions of Douglas Freshfield and Aleister Crowley, as well as its position as a holy mountain to local Buddhist communities.

^{The Second Ice Fall from Camp 2}

^{The summit spire viewed fromJoe Brown & George Band's lunch stop}

‘Kangchenjunga - The Five Treasures of the Snows’ has been curated by John Porter and will run at the Alpine Club's Charlotte Road premises from 8 April to 29 May 2025.

There will be an informal opening on the evening of 8 April, coinciding with that evening's lecture, at which a short film about the mountain will be shown. This event is open to all and can be booked by signing up to attend the lecture.

More generally, the exhibition will be open to visitors from 11:00 – 15:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as on London lecture evenings.

Visitors are kindly asked to book in advance using the form below so that we can ensure the necessary level of staffing. Failure to do so may lead to you being turned away.

What Would Lucy Say?

‘What would Lucy say?’ is an exhibition which marks two key anniversaries in the history of the Alpine Club, namely the 50th Anniversary of the AC voting to admit women and the 50th Anniversary of the merger of the AC with the Ladies’ Alpine Club.

The ‘Lucy’ in question is Lucy Walker, the first woman to climb the Matterhorn who, despite this achievement and having already had, by 1870, many successful alpine seasons, could not be elected to the Alpine Club because of her gender.

The exhibition title could equally have been asked of a number of Walker’s contemporaries, women who climbed seriously in the second half of the 19th century and before the founding of the Ladies’ Alpine Club in 1907. The exhibition highlights a number of these women and their climbing achievements.

^{A 19th Century Edward Whymper engraving showing AC members in Zermatt - Note Lucy Walker watching on from the doorway.}

It is interesting to note that there was no official Alpine Club rule against the admission of women, applications from women candidates were simply not welcomed on account of their supposed physical and moral deficiencies in the matter of mountain climbing. The exhibition places these attitudes in context, with comparisons made with other alpine clubs, organisations and societies.

The lead up to the vote, and its eventual passage, are explored, including details of the women who joined prior to the vote and the rather embarrassing tale of Tschingel, the mountain-climbing dog who was reputedly the Club’s first female member.

With the admission of women to the AC, a merger with the LAC had a sad inevitability. The exhibition deals with the history of the LAC, its founders, key members and their achievements over the lifetime of the club.

^{Lizzie Le Blond, founder and first president of the LAC}

^{Sally Westmacott, the first woman to be officially admitted to the AC, shown here climbing in Iceland}

The final section of the exhibition is a celebration of where we are now: the place of female AC members within the club and in the wider mountaineering community.

In curating this exhibition, as with all remembered anniversaries, we hope to prompt discussions of the past and a fresh evaluation of the present. What would Lucy say, indeed?

The exhibition is housed at the Alpine Club's Charlotte Road premises. It will run from 12 November 2024 to 13 February 2025 and is open to visitors from 10:00 – 16:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, as well as on London lecture evenings.

Visitors are kindly asked to book in advance using the form below so that we can ensure the necessary level of staffing. Failure to do so may lead to you being turned away.

Edward Compton - The Wild Pomp of Alpine Majesty

^{Matterhorn - ET Compton (1880)}

'Probably no one prior to ET Compton had ever combined hard climbing with such talented work as an Alpine artist.' – Peter Mallalieu, Artists of the Alpine Club

^{Auf Dem Koblack - ET Compton (1894)}

^{Presanella from Vadrett - ET Compton}