UKC

I'd like to start doing some Alpine mountaineering this year, but currently have no Alpine experience. How do you progress from Scottish mountains to Alpine peaks? I neither want nor can I afford to rely on guides; in a few years time I'd like to be a capable, independent Alpinist.

How do you progress? Are guides essential to beginners? Are there any affordable Alpine courses in Europe? (I don't have ££££'s to spend). Is there an equivalent of camp 4 in the alps somewhere, where I could just turn up in my van and meet likeminded folks/equally incompetent fools? (I have some Scottish winter experience and have done some skills courses already).

Any advice appreciated. Thanks in advance.

If you have some winter experience etc. I would mainly focus on glacier travel & crevasse rescue. For that I would consider a 1 day course just focussing on that. You could also practice at home with a mate (seilrolle and other pulley systems), on YouTube there's alot of great videos on it. Just don't go onto a glacier with less than 4 people on a rope and you should be fine if you know crevasse rescue. Stuff like the weather, planning etc. can't really be taught, it's just a process of gaining experience. Hope I helped. Cheers. 

Thanks for the reply. I could sure afford that and would no doubt be unwise to skimp on such. 

Probably four common routes:

1) Self taught perhaps with a buddy / friends. I would strongly recommend the book Alpine Mountaineering by Bruce Goodlad as a starting point.

2) Find an experienced mentor / group. This could be through joining a club, talking to as many climbers as possible about your alpine ambitions or perhaps through an on line post. ( Be aware, the mentor may not know as much as they think and this can be very hard to judge.)

3) A course run by guides is more economical than standard 1:1 or 2:1 guiding. I would strongly recommend the Conville Courses; https://www.jcmt.org.uk/courses/

4) Hire a guide for a fully personalised and tailored approach.

Each of these have advantages and potential pitfalls and some people prefer one approach over another.

   In answer to your other questions:

- Practice 'alpine' climbing skills in the UK and then go alpine climbing as much as you can. Eg; long summer days ( 12 hours plus ) linking scrambling / rock routes and get lots of pitches in. 

- You can rock up at a campsite ( for example the Argentiere campsite ) and look for potential buddies there or through the local guides office. This suits some people and not others. Also note comment on 2) above. Personally, I prefer to have climbed with someone a few times first before doing any alpine climbing with them.

Hope this helps, see you out there

Get hold of the BMC Alpine skills DVD, practice what you can in the UK and then go and get on with it.  Most of my generation just saw it as a natural progression.  Walking, single pitch trad, multi pitch trad, winter snow and ice, alpine, greater ranges.  We read a few books and then learnt through experience.  Our biggest and most dangerous mistake was failing to learn how to move together, we tended to solo what we mistakenly saw as safe, easy ground.  A few near misses son taught us the error of our ways. One tip I would give is to learn to climb technical rock in big boots and resist the temptation to stop to change into rock boots and in and out of crampons.  Look at the ground ahead and compromise.  Short areas of ice do not necessarily demand wearing crampons and conversely it's perfectly possible reasonable to climb quite hard rock in crampons.

Al

Ok, that's good. Cheers. I've done the JCMT Scottish course (excellent) and applied already to the Alpine one (fingers crossed). Good to know. Thanks Mark.

Do some PD ordinary routes that have no glacier travel, there are not that many. Lagginhorn and Weissmies are the obvious ones and can be linked via the balcony path between the Wiessmies and Almageller huts to make a great week. Allalinhorn just across the valley is a good intro to PD glacier snow plods and can be added as one day at the end thanks to the very high uplift on the MetroAlpin.

I was kind of hoping someone would say that it's largely a matter of time/experience and 'doing it'. I'll get that DVD. Cheers Al. 

1) Don't limit yourself to  Chamonix. Other areas of the Alps can be better for developing a sound base to your Alpine skills.

2) Don't translate your Scottish ice / rock grade to the equivalent Alpine grade and think it tells you anything significant.

3) Take on board the 'guide book times' for routes. Basically if you're not doing the route in guidebook time, you're not doing it right.

Get yourself to Skye in late spring/early summer for some big days in the Cuillin

An alpine course will give you great value for money, but there are alternatives:

1. Before you start your first glacier approach, find a nice crevasse somewhere with a mate, set up a solid belay above it, and take turns getting lowered in and being pulleyed out and/or self-rescuing with prusiks (having preferably read the theory first). If you're more than two, you can have even more fun jumping in on a loose rope, one guy trying to hold you with an ice axe brake, and the rest backing up.

2. Find a safe slope which flattens out at the bottom and practice braking with your axe from all sliding positions, including head first on your back.

I've only had to use this stuff in earnest three times in forty years, but boy, was I glad of having practiced it!

Main thing is to find a like minded partner to learn with. There are plenty of easier objectives either non glaciated  or easy glaciated (e.g. Marmolata) to just get on with it.