Guides
The Snow Decision, On a Tour Day in March
How an alpine guide on a routine ski tour in the Stubai made the snow call that turned the day around.
Section
Guides
Certified guide examinations, the IFMGA pin, a day with an alpine guide in the Aiguilles, the Sherpa Mountaineering Cooperative.
Guides
What Guides Are Paid: A Survey of Six Mountain Ranges
The day rate of an alpine guide in 2026, compared across six ranges and four certification systems.
Guides
Women in the Trade: Three Guides in the Aosta Valley
In a valley where the guide trade was male for two centuries, three women now work full seasons.
Guides
The British Aspirant System in Winter Scotland
How the British Mountain Guides certify in conditions that have no analogue in the Alps.
Guides
Two Generations of Davenports in the Tetons
A father and a daughter, forty years apart, working the same routes out of Jenny Lake.
Guides
The Sherpa Mountaineering Cooperative at Twelve
A cooperative founded to keep Sherpa wages at home has, twelve years on, changed the economics of Khumbu guiding.
Guides
A Day on the Aiguilles with Jean-Luc Pochon
One spring day on the south face of the Aiguille du Midi with a Chamonix guide of thirty-one years.
Guides
The IFMGA Aspirant Examination, Observed
Three days at the Aiguille du Midi with a cohort of aspirants and the examiners who will pass or fail them.