UKC

Hi all, just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for any Alpine Mountaineering courses in the UK. On a tight budget so looking for cheap but good options. 

Thanks a lot!!

I don't know if Plas y Brenin are currently running Alpine Courses?

I'm not sure what counts as an Alpine mountaineering course in the UK, but I've got various scrambling and mountaineering courses running in North Wales and can probably put something on to suit your needs. Drop me an email contact@straightupadventures.co.uk and let me know what you're after and I'll see what I can do. 

if you are proficient in uk summer and winter join a uk club that runs trips to the alps. Become an active member of the club in the uk, post winter repairs, lift shares, club meets, cleaning, group cooking etc you’ll be welcomed, I'm sure. 

If you're less skilled, join anyway and it will help you get to a level where you can consider the alps.

Google conville courses.

You asked for "cheap but good options"

I'm very sorry but whenever I hear "cheap but good" I cannot reply: those 2 words do not go together. If it's cheap it's not good, if it's good it's not cheap

Let's expand this concept, cheap food is not so good, cheap wine is not so good, cheap holidays are not so good. Good food is not cheap, good wine is not cheap, good holidays are not cheap

Just my thoughts

Good luck to you in your search

It's a bit of a thread derail, but I don't agree that cheap cannot be good. Had some fantastic cheap holidays climbing on v low budget, some cheap food is some of the best (a vegetable thali in bradford springs to mind and many peasant food dishes are fantastic), can't comment on wine so you may be correct there, and I probably agree with you that a cheap climbing course is a false economy.

But I wouldn't say cheap is not good as such a wide generalisation, it's often a bad funtion of consumerism to assume so. It's more nuanced I think

On this particular subject, the courses run by the Jonathan Colville Memorial Trust have always been regarded as cheap, and also good. (Caveat: I don't have any personal experience of them, or any association with them.)

OP: see https://www.jcmt.org.uk/courses and https://pyb.co.uk/jonathan-conville-memorial-trust/ for more info on all that. Maybe they will suit your purposes; maybe not.

A good, but maybe not cheap, climbing or mountaineering course will pay itself back a thousand times over in terms of freedom and independence it provides in the mountains. I'd very much see it as an investment in the long run. 

Instead of cheap, maybe a better term would be value-for-money. I agree very much that very expensive doesn't necessarily mean very good but there is a middle ground where cost is quite a good indicator of quality.

I can't comment on the UK scene but in the Alps most weeklong courses will cost somewhere between 800-1200 euros. If you consider what you learn and what that amount of money buys you (huts, guides, food, sometimes also rental equipment and course materials) I think that's fairly good value for money. 

Club membership is cheap, many members are fantastic instructors with a wealth of experience, but you pay in other ways with your time and commitment to the club, then the next generation comes through and you become the old and wise passing on knowledge.