Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2009 5:40 am
Dingus Milktoast wrote:Andinistaloco wrote:I often get the feeling that those of us who don't use guides are a dying breed.
Uh, no.
Gotta take yer blinders off mate, to see the DIYers out there.
They are coming out of the gyms, off of the sport crags and away from the boulders. They are standing their snow boards in the corner and learning to AT and Tele to reach better ground in winter.
They solo walls on Baffin Island and base jump off Lovers Leap on snowboards for christsakes.
No guides. Just balls.
Its Boomers mostly, engaging the guiding services, other than on big guiding mountains like Rainer, or Shasta or the Matterhorn, etc. ie Older folks with more money, than time, on their hands. And that's cool - guides have to eat too.
This whole concept of engaging the services of a guide is pretty much a religious issue among climbers - the view of guiding and indeed the ultimate fate of BEING GUIDED is a control issue. Its also a core philosophical issue.
For me climbing is many things and one of them is about me being in control in wild situations. I don't mean being in charge, I'm not the type frankly. I mean being in control.
I'd rather doing something easier or less committing, than engage a guide to do something rad.
DMT
Blinders? Whoa, hoss... just my opinion, and not even very strongly expressed, at that. I'm sure there are plenty of folks that don't use guides. They might well outnumber the ones that do. Just seems to me that the ratio is changing and the latter group growing quicker, 's all I'm saying.
It's easy to say folks are leaving the climbing gyms. But twenty years ago, how many climbing gyms WERE there? And how many now? I know folks who've never climbed outside of a gym.
Anyway, liked what you had to say about being in control of the situation, though. Because that's the proverbial double-edged sword too. D'you like being in control of a bad situation, or having someone else take charge? That question would often answer who hires guides and who doesn't.