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  The guide profession and mountain tourism organisation today

Claude REY - Vice-president, Syndicat National des Guides de Montagne, Chambéry, France

 

 

The guide profession, in the traditional sense (accompanying tourists in the mountains with a view to climbing a summit), is now more than two centuries old because the ascension of Mont Blanc, the event that founded mountaineering, dates back to 1787.

From this time on (foundation of the Chamonix Guide Company in 1823), and up to the end of the seventies, the guides devoted the main part of their activities to the climbing of summits. In the initial few decades, the guides joined together in groups (of sometimes more than a dozen) to take several rich "travellers" onto the main peaks of the Alps along the supposedly easiest path. Later on, the guide worked alone, perhaps helped by a carrier, and accompanied his client (sometimes two) along increasingly technical routes.

The difficulty therefore became an aim in itself, with reaching the summit sometimes taking second place. Then, in the early second half of the XXth century, guides learned to work in the community (with the UNCM, which later became the UCPA) with courses in which they trained relatively large groups with a view to teaching them the technicalities of mountaineering. Finally, guides are increasingly becoming involved with skiing, rambling or trekking and, with the development of ski resorts, with off-piste skiing.

To sum up, in two centuries, the guide to client ratio has dropped, clients come from a broader range of social classes, the difficulty of the courses has increased and the profession is also diversifying with the guide increasingly adopting the role of instructor. They also increasingly undertake what Gaston Rebuffat used to call "recreational" climbs and we now call "pleasure" climbs today.

Throughout the course of these two centuries, the guides have continued to adapt to the demands of their time but their activity remains connected with the mountains, in other words, with a harsh and exacting environment which demands a considerable physical and moral commitment, long training and a good knowledge of the environment.

And thus we come to the end of the seventies and there are around 600 to 700 guides in France who exercise their profession under these conditions.

It is around this time that the movement which began with the "recreational" climbs begins to develop in the mountains. At the same time, our society is tending more and more towards outdoor activities of a hedonistic nature requiring little effort, little training and little commitment, both in terms of time (training) and the act itself (simple, quick return to "civilisation").

Once again, the guides adapted well to this demand. They are even often pioneers in new activities such as canyoning, Via Ferrata climbing, the forest obstacle course or the "adventure trek", which enables them to make a living from their skills for more of the year (without this necessarily being in the mountains), and also means there are more of them (in 2001, the number of members of the National Guides' Syndicate exceeded 1500)..That said, this new adaptation requires the guides to change in a different way to previously : although they have always previously remained within the bounds of mountaineering, they are now becoming organisers in fields that are no longer related to mountaineering but where the technical abilities unique to them are nevertheless required.

In so doing, and due to the development of society, the guide is dealing less and less with mountain people and more and more with consumers.

The guides face a dilemma

Does continuing in this way and mindlessly adapting to demand, mean that the guides are losing a little of their spirit ? Even if that undoubtedly enables more of them to make a living as guides for more of the year and also at an older age. Furthermore by wanting to adapt this profession too much, is there a risk of making it disappear altogether or, at the very least, of doing away with its spirit ?

Should we continue to adapt to a demand that takes us ever further away from our passion ?

For being a guide is about having a passion as well as doing a job. It is this passion that gives us the exceptional moral and physical commitment that we possess, where nature is at its most beautiful but also its most fearsome: in the high mountains.

Even if we occasionally accept this role of organiser (certainly in areas other than the high mountains) towards which the evolution of society is pushing us, we want to affirm our specific nature in the face of other economic activities.

And rather than unreservedly adapting ourselves to the demands of an urban and sometimes somewhat disorientated society that does not always understand nature (but which in fact has a vital need to be confronted by it), we prefer to be mediums between society and the mountains. For this is a world where forces of nature that cannot be tamed express themselves crudely and even savagely.

Our way, as guides, of adapting to the demands of tourism will enable those who are unfamiliar with the mountains to learn about them, for their stability, their pleasure and their safety.

We can and should explain about the mountains and their value and we should teach people just what our world is and how it differs from the everyday urban world. The National Guides' Union believes that that is where our role lies rather than trying in vain to adapt the mountains to the needs of our fellow citizens.

In practical terms, as far as our regional and national structures are concerned, that means that we should continue the awareness raising campaign that we begun several years ago, in academic institutions for example, and we should take part in informing the public by all means possible, and in particular using the public information service about conditions in the mountains that we are in the middle of implementing on the Internet.

On an individual level, this means that each guide has a duty to explain to each of his clients the difficulties and risks inherent to the mountains. This is a new and difficult task in an environment where we have hitherto been dealing with a customer base consisting of initiates for whom this type of explanation was unnecessary.

For guides, explaining the mountains is their way of participating in future tourism organisation.