Throughout this year, the Club is celebrating its 100th anniversary: it was founded by a group of British skiers staying at the very large Palace Hotel in the very small Swiss resort of Maloja (up the valley from St Moritz, and on the pass between the Engadine and Bregalia regions) in 1925.
Special events and activities throughout the year are looking both back on a century of ski-touring, and forward to the future. It is hoped that as many members as possible, young, old, recently-joined, and veterans of decades of touring with the club, will be able to participate in one or more of them.
A series of posters illustrating aspects of the history of the club has been put together by club archivist John Barnard, and will be displayed at various centenary events during the year; copies can also be seen here:
- One hundred years ago...
- Before the War: Maloja and Grindelwald
- Postwar Doldrums and Revitalisation
- Ski Races
- A few words from our sponsors - yearbook adverts
Burns Night Scottish Dinner Meet - 25-26 January 2025
The centenary year started with the now-traditional Burns Night weekend meet at the Balavil Hotel at Kingussie in Scotland, organised as usual by Tim Winther. Despite the efforts of Storm Eowyn to prevent people getting there, more than 50 members arrived, along with enough snow allowing most to go touring on the Sunday. On the Saturday evening the haggis was piped in by Quint Glen, addressed by Angus Armstrong, and consumed by most of the rest. Many members contributed readings and songs during the meal, posters highlighting the club's early history were displayed, as were a collection of photographs and ski equipment of various degrees of antiquity.
Maloja Day Tours - 28 Feb - 4 Mar 20255
The 2025 touring programme includes a trip to the Maloja area in south-east Switzerland, based at the the club's birthplace of the Maloja Palace Hotel. Participants hope to explore some of the original routes on Piz Aela, which were used by Club members in the 1920s, and will also be meeting up with members of the local Ski Club Maloja, which was founded a few years after the Eagles.
Though it was the scene of the club's 75th Anniversary celebrations in 2000, it was concluded after much discussion that Maloja's relative remoteness, and less abundant touring and other opportunities than better-known centres, rendered it unsuitable for the club's main Centenary event in the Alps, which will take place at Arolla.
Centenary Meet - Arolla, Switzerland - 14-17 March 2025
We have secured exclusive private use of the historic Grand Hotel and Kurhaus, where the bulk of attendees will be accommodated for this event, with some overflow in other nearby hotels. The weekend will incorporate training sessions, guided and member-led day-tours, a re-enactment (not a competitive race) of the type of "patrol race" run by the club before the War, talks, exhibitions and a celebratory dinner on the Saturday evening. Several of the tours on the club's official touring programme for 2025 have been designed to link with the meet.
Booking opened on 1 June 2024, and the meet capacity of 180 was filled completely within a few days, though cancelations since then have meant that everyone on the waiting list has also been accommodated.
As at 19 Feb 2025 a few spaces for people wanting accommodation and to join the full meet have become available and anyone interested should contact the Arolla planning team immediately at esc.arolla25@gmail.com. The planning team request that members without confirmed registrations should not turn up at Arolla "on spec", as there is no additional capacity either in the main social venue or for the planned ski activities.
Centenary Symposium - Kingussie, Scotland - 15-16 November 2025
A special ski-mountaineering symposium will be held at the Duke of Gordon Hotel in Kingussie (near Aviemore) on the weekend of 15/16 November 2025. This will build on the successful symposia held at various venues in England and Wales over the last few decades, and will include lectures, workshops, training events, a dinner and the AGM.
London Dinner - Provisional Date 1 Nov 2025
A celebratory dinner in London is intended to be particularly attractive to those members unable to travel to more distant locations. Further details will be made available in due course, but a provisional date of 1 November 2025 has been identified (subject to securing an appropriate venue).
Centenary Merchandise
Tee-shirts and neck-warmers carrying the centenary version of the club's logo have been produced, and have been available for order via the club's website. Items ordered before 30 Jan 2025 should be distributed in time for the Arolla meet in March. It is possible that, depending on demand, further orders will be accepted later in the year.
Centenary Book
A special book will be published alongside the 2025 Yearbook to celebrate the centenary. It will contain a selection of articles from Yearbooks over the past hundred years, along with specially-commissoned articles on the history of the club, the development of ski-touring over the past century, and prospects for the future. The editorial team is being led by Pete Boyd, assisted by Stephen Goodwin and John Barnard.
Centenary Postcards
Special postcards, illustrated with a painting by club member Janet Johnson (right), were distributed with the 2024 Yearbook, with the idea that members should return them from wherever they get to during the centenary year, as a record of the diversity of the club's activities.
The club's Archivist, John Barnard, is co-ordinating the various events and activities, with the assistance of a large number of volunteers. A survey to assess members' interest in different ideas was carried out in the late summer of 2023 (a report on its results is available here) which, along with informal soundings taken at other club events were used to help develop the plans.
If you would like to help with the organisation of any of the events or activities, or have ideas of your own, then please contact John Barnard (archivist@eagleskiclub.org.uk; 07985 465330).
(Updated 19 Feb 2025; JMB)