Review of a guide…

Today I think it’s time to review what skills a good guide (Mountain leader) shall or at least are expected to have.

Social intelligence, a skilled guide now how to tune into a new group of persons(clients) she or he quickly need to understand, learn a little bit of them and especially build a relationship that is not going to crumble. Being close but with a portion of integrity as well. A balance and a mix in a good way…

Adopting a flexible leadership style, This in the meaning of moving from an authoritarian to authority leadership style. Friendly and nice with a flow in the chit chat, but clear demanding when necessarily…

The ability to empowering others, this is a tricky skill to understand. The Customer/client must being able to do the challenge by themselves, but the guide shall do the effort. It’s like: “I will not give you a hand up for the summit, I will provide the shoulders for you to stand on for reaching the summit. I’m not the one to pull you”. It is you that muss succeed, but its my job to help you in any way. But I cant or will be doing it for you.

Trust, You need to be a trust-builder. Partly to trust within you as a guide, but also for the client to trust of them selves as well. The trust is the link between just faith and real confidence. A good example of this will be when a first time climber shall do her/his first rappel. When you as a guide just say; take a step back into the air and just let it go…

Risk management, You need to be risk aware. Bad weather, falling rocks, a good guide must learn how to have the “sense-switch” on the whole time. A three step thinking and not being afraid of not present risks…

Ability to see the big picture, The summit is not the target, it is the journey. It is at the journey you will learn. About mountaineering and maybe most important; about yourself. And a guide probably will do and have probably done a lot of “journeys”. And, as a guide always says, the mountain will be there tomorrow as well…

For complicate the whole picture you can look into this:

Here we have just spoken mostly of the ”soft skills” add the two other areas and now you can understand the complexibility of becoming a guide. This is why it is much harder to be a guide comparing to be a manager in the business…And all of the skills and among the other areas shall end up in vice judgement, that is the essence. Like when you boiling a sauce. The reduction will be the judgement in this case…

I also got a new snowshoe for testing. The Gridarmor Pasvik. This is a snowshoe with really good grip. The shoe does not have a front strap, and you will use two over-foot straps. Spontaneously I got three findings: 1. Looks like it got a really good grip. 2. The snowshoe is a bit heavy. 3. I not sure how much I can trust the buckle and strap solution for the heel.

See ya soon…

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