Alpine Club Library
@alpineclublib.bsky.social
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The Alpine Club Library - devoted to mountains, mountaineering and the history of both. Part of @alpineclub.bsky.social Open to visitors & club members on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays.
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The Club @alpineclub.bsky.social has new merch for sale! alpineclub.org/shop

Top Tip - You can turn it into library merch by getting a permanent marker and writing library under the logo!
Alpine club hoodie and sweatshirt in green with gold logo and alpine club tshirt in blue with white logo
Reposted by Alpine Club Library
alpineclub.bsky.social
This letter by 1953 Everest Expedition member George Lowe was recently discovered in a second-hand book and kindly donated to our collections by Paul Speight .

In it, Lowe writes to an acquaintance, Pamela, offering advice on photography ahead of her trip to the Antarctic.
Dear Pamela,

What can I say to allay your anxiety! My filming and photog. was forty years ago & it was all rather hit & miss. The modern cameras & films are now very accurate in getting exposure right. The film I had was rated at 64 (Kodachrome) & exposure was guessed - & at that time there was a tendency to overexpose. I would be wary of moving 2 x f. stops. If your S.L.R. Minolta is giving good results in varied light here – I would trust it to work at the S. latitudes. The light on the ice at early morning & late day is beautiful. Now, for my trekking in the Himalayas I tend to use Kodachrome 200 & it is satisfactory for me. I think you will find other travellers on the polar ship will be of best help to you. I must say I envy you your trip. Ed. Hillary & Bunny Fuchs went on the polar ship in Feb. of this year & both enjoyed it. (Not many trees down there!)

Give my good wishes to Tony & Vicky & have a wonderful holiday.

Yours sincerely,
George Lowe
14 Oct. 94
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Today's #OnlineArtExchange theme is impressive buildings with Liverpool Cathedral ⛪

View some of their collection on @artukdotorg.bsky.social 👉 buff.ly/ERZOkmF

We've chosen this painting of Leh Palace by John Frederick Cheetham (1835–1916) which he painted while on a tour of the Himalayas
Leh Palace - watercolour in sepia tones. A nine storey flat roofed building that rises high above the surrounding city
alpineclublib.bsky.social
We've still got a few places left on our tours for #HeritageOpenDays on Thursday & Friday.

Have a tour from our librarian and handle a few items from the collections - plus see a bunch of things that never make it into exhibitions! (and some books!)

www.heritageopendays.org.uk/submission-e...
Dorothy Pilley's stereoscopic photograph viewer and photographs Orange tinted snow goggles Crampons Green tent repair kit, including patches and thread
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Scones are fine and all ... but we're wondering if there's cake in the van?
alpineclublib.bsky.social
And if you want to see paintings from our collection in person we still have spaces on our Heritage Open Day Tours which take place on Thursday 18th and Friday 19th September.

Tours are free - and we only run them for Heritage Open Days!

Details here - www.heritageopendays.org.uk/submission-e...
Tour of the Alpine Club Collections
Tour of the Alpine Club Library
www.heritageopendays.org.uk
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Today's #OnlineArtExchange for @artukdotorg.bsky.social is ‘Victorian’ for Victorian Treasures from Cecil French and Scott Thomas Buckle at Leighton House

We've chosen 'Between the Lights' by Henry Willink. The climbers in the pool of light between the lanterns still resonates today.
'Between the Lights' by Henry Willink Four climbers make their way over a rocky mountain lit only by lanterns
alpineclublib.bsky.social
It's TIME for today's ##onlineartexchange @artukdotorg.bsky.social

We don't seem to have any pictures of clocks - so we're sharing these photos from an expedition to the Bernese Oberland in 1939. Sequences of photos from expeditions capture weeks or months in time.
Mountaineers climbing on rope
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Sorting out uncatalogued maps and found this pictorial map of the Caucasus produced for USSR tourists
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Very excited to have got a timetable for the September 2025 @artukdotorg.bsky.social UK Bloomberg Connects cohort!

Which means as long as we don't distract our librarian we'll be on the Bloomberg Connects App by Christmas!

(We are already on ArtUK - artuk.org/visit/venues...) #Art #Collections
Picture of the Alpine Club sign - it's an ice axe (what else?)
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And all of the collection can be viewed by appointment at the library. Much of it can also be licensed for publication - alpineclub.org/library/photos
Picture of the Alpine Club photo library website
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Woolley was a President of the Alpine Club - but his albums reflect the personal nature of many of the photos in our collection. Alongside famous mountaineering images are also simple records of climbs enjoyed with friends 2/3
Kvitlodi glacier
alpineclublib.bsky.social
It's #NationalPhotographyDay. There's plenty of things we could post from our collection but we've chosen this small album of climbs from H. Woolley during a holiday in the Caucasus. 1/2
Green Photo album Gulchi from west Camp
alpineclublib.bsky.social
We're closed until September so are currently enjoying 'the librarian's utopia'
Reposted by Alpine Club Library
rgsibg.bsky.social
It’s #WorldPhotographyDay!📸

Did you know the Society holds half a million photographs, dating back to the earliest days of photography?

In this video, Jamie Owen shares some favourites, from Carleton Watkins’ pioneering shots of Yosemite to stunning Mount Everest panoramas🏔️
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Wanna visit us? Wanna hold a victorian ice axe? Want to hear our librarian talk about us?

We're doing tours as part of this year's Heritage Open days!

Details here www.heritageopendays.org.uk/submission-e... (no mountaineering experience required!)
Picture of the Alpine Club’s archives - mostly grey boxes
alpineclublib.bsky.social
She's just taunting us now
Sign at gate to access Skeleton ridge route Needles from the old battery
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Our librarian is on holiday on the Isle of Wight - and got a boat trip round the Needles. We're well aware this is cheating
Needles Isle of Wight Needles Isle of Wight
alpineclublib.bsky.social
We have shrouds! No paint is getting on our books! #NewPaint #decorating
alpineclublib.bsky.social
Apparently the library is getting a paint job while our librarian is away for two weeks. She's asked for 'a pretty colour'.
Library with tables cleared and paint chips on the floor
alpineclublib.bsky.social
We usually try and join in with #OnlineArtExchange but we honestly can't do abstraction - all our collection is mountains, or people related to mountains, or people on mountains, or (maybe) flowers from mountains.
artukdotorg.bsky.social
Tomorrow's #OnlineArtExchange is abstract and non-figurative art 🔺🌀🖌️

Explore our abstraction art term to get started 👉 buff.ly/wO8UDy4

'Ponterwyd/Gaia' by Mary Lloyd Jones (b.1934) © the artist. 📷 The National Library of Wales
Abstraction | Art UK
Discover artworks, explore venues and meet artists. Art UK is the online home for every public collection in the UK, featuring over 600,000 artworks by over 60,000 artists.
buff.ly
alpineclublib.bsky.social
It's really satisfying though! And paperclips are better than rusty pins
alpineclublib.bsky.social
This report - and MEF expedition reports going back to the 1950s - are all available on the MEF website! www.mef.org.uk/expeditions

And if you follow @mef-official.bsky.social you'll get to see when new reports go live #mountaineering #paperwork
alpineclublib.bsky.social
One of the yearly jobs is finding book covers to illustrate articles in @alpineclub.bsky.social 's Alpine Journal. Does mean an excuse to root through the #rarebooks for half an hour
Victorian books on library shelves- mostly clothes bound, all about mountaineering
alpineclublib.bsky.social
While Mont Blanc is the tallest 4000er, Les Droites is the smallest, just making the list at 4000m.
Les Droites