How to start alpine climbing?
There are many ways to learn the ropes as an alpinist.
If you have a friend who is a competent and experienced alpinist, ask them. Learning from them might well be the easiest and most friendly way to be introduced to alpinism.
Join your local climbing club. This can be a cost-effective way to learn to climb and meet potential partners and others you can learn from.
While it’s possible to learn from an experienced mentor or friend, we recommend signing up for classes taught by trained professionals. A qualified IFMGA Mountain Guide can offer guided trips and teach you the technical skills you’ll need. Spending some time with a guide can really help you progress faster, as they will be able to assess your experience and ability, develop those skills during your time together, and then suggest appropriate routes for you to climb independently.
Alternatively, go on an alpine climbing course run by professional mountain guides. Either an alpine preparation skills courses or a full alpine climbing course in the Alps or the Dolomites. There are many organisations, schools and clubs that provide this kind of training. We can highly recommend our partner organisations.
What is the best way to train for alpine climbing?
General climbing and mountaineering skills
Any time you spend climbing and generally in the hills, will help you to adapt to long days in an alpine environment. Good teamwork and moving together securely is key to efficient travel through the high mountains. Long mountain days, over scrambling terrain with your alpine partner are ideal as your initial training.
Traditional Rock climbing
Trad rock climbing is the basis upon which all other technical climbing skills are built. Efficient and safe belaying, leading, gear placement skills, ropework, building and equalising anchors and abseil technique all need to be second nature, and the skills mastered in traditional rock climbing transfer directly to alpinism. Again, learning to move quickly is important here. This might even include pulling on gear. Learn to jug through challenging sections where it’s faster for the follower to use aid climbing techniques instead of free climb. Having proficient aid climbing skills will also help improve your confidence and speed on the sharp end.
Winter mountaineering
Safe alpine climbing in winter and summer requires efficient movement over snow and ice with crampons. You also need to be able to climb rock steps wearing crampons rather than wasting time removing them and putting them back on again. Mixed winter climbing provides a good grounding. Familiarity in using an ice axe for support, self-arrest and cutting steps is useful for crossing any snow patches. Winter mountaineering can help develop these skills and prepare you for technical mixed and ice climbs.
Ice climbing
It’s worth learning to confidently climb frozen waterfalls. When it comes to alpinism, ice climbing is one of the most important skills to learn.
Ice climbing teaches you to move efficiently, have good crampon footwork, how to place ice screws and build belays and Ablakov V-thread abseil points in ice. It will also teach you what clothing works for high-octane activity in freezing cold weather.
Ice climbing skills need to be built up slowly. Taking a leader fall while ice climbing is much more serious than in rock climbing, as you are wearing crampons and carrying sharp tools. It’s worth learning the skills with a certified guide or trusted mentor. Make a point of practicing your mixed climbing skills as much as possible so you are comfortable with it in the mountains. Mixed or dry tooling, essentially means rock climbing with ice tools and crampons.
Fitness preparation
Improving your cardio-vascular fitness will help prepare you for and enable you to get more out of alpine climbing. Running, cycling and swimming are a good way to achieve this, as is any other regular sport.
Specific training to match your alpine aspirations is always a good idea. This might involve long back-to-back days in the hills with a similar weight pack and plenty of ascent and descent, or linking as many pitches as you can during a long weekend.
What are mountains/routes that are good to start on?
If you don’t know where to start alpine climbing, for your first alpine routes, there are a lot of unknowns, so choose routes below 3,500m in altitude with simple approaches and descents, several grades easier than what you would normally climb. The guidebooks’ suggested timings for hut approaches and routes provide a good benchmark to compare how you are doing.
Start on shorter routes, where you can relax and will have plenty of time to complete them, rather than jumping straight onto 4,000m peaks where you might be stressed and short on time.
Alpine climbing grades
The overall grade takes the following factors into account: altitude, ascent and descent including length, difficulty of approach and exposure, danger, commitment, and technical difficulty, orientation to the sun and exposure to weather.
This system originated with UIAA Roman numerals, but it is now generally shown with French letters and is increasingly being used worldwide.
F: Facile/easy.
Straight forward rock scrambling or easy snow slopes; possibly some glacier travel; often climbed ropeless except on glaciers.
PD: Peu Difficile/a little difficult.
Longer and at altitude with snow slopes up to 45°. Some technical climbing and more complex glaciers.
AD: Assez Difficile/fairly difficult.
Steep climbing or long snow/ice slopes above 50°; for experienced alpine climbers only.
D: Difficile/difficult.
Sustained hard rock and/or ice or snow; fairly serious stuff.
TD: Tres Difficile/very difficult.
Long, serious, remote, and highly technical.
ED: Extremement Difficile/extremely difficult. The most serious climbs with the most continuous difficulties. Increasing levels of difficulty indicated by ED1, ED2, etc.
Alpine climbing routes
There are so many routes to climb. Here are some suggestions to get you started. We list them in two groups: five routes to maybe climb with a guide where you can push yourself and improve your skills, and five less complex routes to consolidate your skills, and develop yourself further.
Routes to climb with a guide
Ortles
Location: Upper Vinschgau, Alto Adige / Südtirol, Italy
Grade: AD (UIAA VI-, 45º)
Starting point: Hintergrathütte, above Sulden
Skills required: Crampon skills, glacier travel and crevasse rescue, movement on rock and moving together rope work.
Gear: full glacier equipment, carabiners, slings, ice screws (optional).
The Hintergrat or East ridge of Ortler is an impressive and famous route with exposed ridge climbing that leads to the Ortler summit.
Pollux
Location: Zermatt or the Val d’Ayas
Grade: PD+
Starting point: Ayas hut or the Klein Matterhorn lift
Skills required: Glacier travel and crevasse rescue, rock scrambling and belay techniques.
Gear: Glacier travel kit and a few extenders and slings for the fixed ropes. There are spikes to protect the rock sections.
Mont Blanc de Cheilon
Location: Arolla
Grade: PD+
Starting point: Cabane de Dix
Skills required: Crampon skills, glacier travel and crevasse rescue, movement on rock, moving together ropework.
Gear: Glacial travel and crevasse rescue kit, small rock rack.
Piz Bernina
Location: Pontressina
Grade: PD+
Starting point: Diavolezza lift
Skills required: Glacier travel and crevasse rescue, rock scrambling and belay techniques.
Gear: Glacier travel kit and a small rack.
Half Traverse of Breithorn
Location: Zermatt or Val d’Ayas
Grade: AD
Starting point: Klein Matterhorn or Ayas hut
Skills required: Crevasse rescue, movement on steep snow/ice, movement on exposed rock, moving together and pitching.
Gear: Glacier travel, crevasse rescue and small rock rack.
Routes to climb independently
Traverse of Pigne d’Arolla
Grade: F
Location: Arolla
Starting point: Dix or Vignettes hut
Skills required: Glacier travel and crevasse rescue
Gear: Glacier travel and crevasse rescue kit.
S-N Traverse of Weissmies
Location: Saas Grund
Grade: PD
Starting point: Allmageller hut
Skills required: Scrambling on rock, moving together on rock ropework, glacier travel and crevasse rescue, crampon skills.
Gear: Glacier travel kit, standard alpine kit plus a helmet.
Gran Paradiso
Location: Val Savaranche
Grade: F+
Starting point: Vittorio Emanuelle or Chabod huts
Skills required: Glacier travel, crevasse rescue, crampon skills, rock scrambling and basic moving together on rock.
Gear: Glacier travel, crevasse rescue and 3 quick draws for the rock.
Traverse of Crochues
Location: Chamonix
Grade: PD+
Starting point: Index lift
Skills required: Easy rock climbing and moving together
Gear: Small rock rack and helmet; you might need an ice axe early in the season.
Similaun Normal Route / West Ridge
Location: Vent, Austria, southern Ötztal group
Grade: F
Starting point: Similaun Hütte at the Niederjoch
Skills required: Easy scrambling, moving together, glacier travel and crevasse rescue.
Gear: Glacier travel, helmet, a few extra slings might be worth taking.
Alpine climbing can be entirely unpredictable. Make sure you talk to your partner about the types of risks you are both ready or unwilling to accept and bear this in mind when you make decisions. Trust your instincts and remember that turning back is part of the experience of climbing in the mountains.
