Guyzo wrote:Howie and Chief.
Good debate.
Howie you cleared up some Q"s I had about the whole cert process and International Guiding.
I feel that competition is always best.
It's best for the customers and the guides.
To give one group preference over another regarding the use of our public lands would be wrong it would be Un-American.
That is just my opinion..... and I have no dog in this fight.
I do have a question, I asked this one before, maybe Howie can answer this one for me.
Does the AMGA sell the insurance a guide would use?
Or does one earn the certification, from AMGA, and go purchase from a third party who uses the cert as some sort of evidence of skills for the guide?
The beef I have with "ALL GUIDES" is when they take groups to popular spots and monopolize all the climbs with top ropes.
Late.
GK
Guyzo,
Indeed, competition is generally good. I think the problem here is that there is only one certification in the US that has
proven to meet international guiding standards. The others are self-proclaimed. The public doesn't necessarily understand that. You see regulation in driver's education for that reason. I can't just open up a driving school and assume that my courses will be accepted by the state. I need to have my program assessed and approved to a certain standard. I am not arguing for any monopoly on certification, only that all public land agencies should demand a high standard from their guiding outfitters. I think that is good for guides, their clients, and the land agencies themselves.
A major issue there is that the land managers often know very little about guided mountain activities, so they don't have the expertise to critically look at these certifications. A classic example of land management ineffectively trying to dictate guiding regulation is on Mt. Rainier. Last year they made a rule that all guided groups on skis must be roped above 10,000 ft. First of all, anyone who knows about ski mountaineering on glaciers understands that skis offer great protection from crevasse fall. It is also common knowledge that skiing downhill roped is incredibly difficult, often creating more danger than it addresses. Normally, below 10,000 ft. is where snow bridges are thin and weak. It is here, if anywhere, that a guide would be more likely to employ the rope. Similar examples of over-regulation guided by incompetence can be seen in Denali N.P. and other US lands. These land managers are often dealing with guides who have little experience, and guide for concessionaires trying to maximize profit in a short season. They feel they have to make rules to protect the public, which are often arbitrary. If these land managers had a reliable guiding standard to use, then perhaps they could more confidently let qualified guides do the complex decision making we do best.
What you start to realize when you go to places like Canada and the Alps, where guiding has thrived for over 150 years, people who go to the mountains with guides are cared for by their guides, not by government bureaucrats. In these countries, everyone, guided or not, has an inalienable right to go enjoy the mountains. It is important to these cultures that guides be competent, proven professionals. I had a French guide tell me once, "In America you say you live in the land of the free, but you cannot even go to your own mountains." This rings very true when you have to enter a lottery to hike up Mt. Whitney, or contend against a proposal to increase the Denali climbing fee to $500. To me that seems un-American.
Regarding insurance, good question. The AMGA does provide access for certified guides to insurances at reduced rates: life, disability, and mountain rescue. They haven't figured out liability insurance yet, but they have been working on it for years. Unemployment and worker's comp. for guide services have not been addressed by the AMGA, which is unfortunate. In all cases, the AMGA does not actually sell or underwrite the policies.
Agreed on the the big guided groups monopolizing the crag. We don't have that problem where we guide as often, as we rarely work with large groups when toproping. When we sometimes do, we always offer to temporarily pull our ropes out of the way for other climbers our just let them take a ride on our ropes. Any guide who doesn't respect the other climbers at the crag is probably a hack or just a jerk.
Hope this is all interesting or entertaining to some.