A GUIDE’S LIFE …Gavin Raubenheimer

Some avid climbers and hikers are drawn to the idea of sun kissed rock, mountains, travel and being paid for it.

Since the opening up of South Africa some twenty seven years ago and the fall of the Rand against major currencies, mountain guiding and professional instructing has become a reasonably paid job and viable career. It can be a lifelong profession giving fulfilment and adventure and a pleasant lifestyle. Not much is known or understood about the job however, perhaps because there are few practitioners in a relatively new type of work.

Getting into the game

Aspirant guides need to keep in mind that guiding hikes, rock and mountaineering, need to have high levels of skill and experience, and there are simply no short cuts. The most important attribute a guide must have is an all-consuming passion for their discipline, combined with a fistful of skill and experience. They have to love mountains and all that is mountaineering. He or she will not gain the required experience or be able to sustain a career unless mountains are their lifelong and number one pastime. If doing another job while working towards becoming a guide, (as many do) they will need to spend almost every spare bit of leave and weekends, clocking up pitches and travelling around southern Africa and abroad.

Secondly, a guide at any level must be a people person, who is at all times patient, calm and who gets a thrill out of seeing their clients attain their goals. Aspirant guides should realise that when they are working, they will firstly be climbing for their client and not for themselves. If this is not the case, frustration will soon set in. A totally new attitude to their climbing will also be needed.   “Climbing becomes your work and your work is climbing”. That means they need to treat climbing like any other job, working hard at it and always improving their skill base and knowledge at the sacrifice of other pastimes.

Thirdly, most guides need to be business people. This is especially so in countries like South Africa. There are simply not enough good paying clients out there to create enough work for large companies to exist and to employ full time guides.

What is a good client?

Being a guide can be a great life, but there is interesting psychology involved in getting good clients, by which is meant well-paying and pleasant to be with on the mountain. Onto this can be added repeat clients; those who come back year after year to hike or climb. Good clients also have a disposable income and arrive with some prior experience. They are often from overseas and have their own equipment and a reasonable or even high amount of skill and fitness. They are a pleasure to be with and are probably professionals in their own rite. This in turn means they have a disposable income and they are willing to pay good money for good service. Secondly they usually arrive as individuals or in pairs. This results in much easier guiding and if rock climbing, it means that one can climb in the normal party of two or three people. These qualities combined are what makes guiding a fulfilling and enjoyable career.

On the other hand, there are clients who are not seriously into the outdoors and are simply not willing to pay good money for good service. And here lies the difference! The psychology is simple. People will not pay very much for something that they do not really enjoy. Because they will not pay much, they have to be put into bigger groups. This means guiding large numbers of inexperienced, and frequently whining clients to make the same profit margins.  Large groups do not mean bigger profits.  These clients  are also frequently on adventure package  tours involving other once off thrill sports such as bungee jumping or quad biking  Also fitting into this category  are  young backpackers, over-landers and school groups. All are best avoided if trying to be a serious guide. Unfortunately, the lower levels of guides are the ones who will usually end up dealing with these clients. One only has to look at the high turnover of staff at commercial abseils to realise there must be a problem. It is high for two reasons; boredom and lack of pay. The excitement of coaxing would-be Special Forces over a cliff for low wages all day, tends to wear off very soon.

The higher levels of mountain guiding

A guide contemplating the upper levels of instructing or guiding needs to realise that these levels come with their own special requirements. By upper levels it is meant guiding long technical rock climbs, such as Spitzkop, Mt Kenya or multiday hikes in the Drakensberg. This often requires guiding on-sight, mountains that the guide has never visited before, but he or she has the skill and confidence to do the job. They may even at times do first ascents while being paid. This is the top order of guiding and usually takes several years to attain. It is at this level where the dedicated climber is able to turn his hobby into his work.

It is important for a professional to remember that they are actually professional sports persons. That means training and lots of recreational climbing with friends. This keeps the guide in touch with the sport and razor sharp at all skills. Not spending this recreational time soon shows in the guide’s confidence, which in turn is not good for business.

On a personal note, many of my clients have become long-standing friends who return year after year. It’s a great feeling to be leading off on some perfect rock on a Monday morning when most other people are still stuck in some city traffic jam.