UKC

Looking for a guide for the Hornli ridge in August. Keen to hear any recommendations for individuals (not companies) to go with. 

In reply to Removed User:

Yep, i was soloing the route and a Swiss guide with client tried to overtake me on the upper Moseley slab just above the Solvay hut of all places (no room to overtake and climbing III in big boots). I told him to eff off and I think I actually trod on his fingers deliberately; didn´t see him again that memorable day.

PS they do lead frustrating existences though; I passed a guide with an approximately 80 year old Japanese client about 15 min after leaving the Hörnli hut; on the way down they´d made about 200m progress and were preparing for the descent.

Probably his easiest day out in ages and still likely coined several hundred Euro in the process.

Emailed you.

Was it really that offensive? I thought it was a blunt but fair reflection of reality. I don't doubt there are some good local guides but I've spent a lot of time climbing in the Alps and seen too many bad ones not to be sceptical.

The general impression you get is of guides in an unholy rush to get up and back off the hill as quickly as possible, with no effort made to inform or instruct their clients and sod the fact their clients have paid a lot of money to have an enjoyable and rewarding experience. Being treated with contempt is bad enough but it's often compounded by some frankly, quite dangerous practices that make you wonder how they ever qualified in the first place.

Perhaps the bad ones stand out more so create a less favourable impression than the reality, but I couldn't in all honesty ever advise anyone just to walk into the local guides office and take whoever they're given rather than do their research and find someone in advance.

Not that offensive, no. However, Zermatt guides definitely have a posse and we can't afford to leave comments like that lying about for fear of waking up one morning to find the UKC servers full of Trojan horses heads...

Calum Muskett, Tim Neill and James Clapham are all excellent having seen them take clients out (inc myself in some cases). I hear Ben Tibbets is also top notch.

Why was my comment deleted?! How was it offensive! I was merely stating my experience of Swiss Matterhorn guides vs an English one on the mountain.

I had a shitty experience with an Italian guide clipping my runners on the Sella Towers as well if you want some balance...

Thinking about my alpine and rock climbing experiences,  I have had "interactions " with French and Swiss guides. American and British guides have always behaved fairly but maybe not British instructors.

I always thought of the jostling for position on popular alpine routes part of the experience and fun of it all.

There's also the classic joke about god and Guides.

Don't know it, what was it? Thanks

Don´t know that one either; googled it and only got links to Rick´s post and to various climber joke pages (sample: Mum, when I grow up I want to be a climber! A: Well, honey, you can´t do both.)

Q: What's the difference between God and a Guide?
A: God doesn't think he's a Guide.

Thanks.

Exactly, I read it before it was deleted and couldn't see anything wrong with it.

Reminds me of a jazz musician joke (of which there are many): a jazz musician dies and goes to heaven; he enters a room filled with all the greats: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Ella etc, all jamming away and having a great time. He sees an old white haired guy with sunglasses sitting in a corner, holding a trumpet and muttering to himself. He asks Oscar Peterson at the bar who it is, and gets the answer: shhh! Don´t disturb him, that´s God, but he thinks he´s Miles Davis.

Is it part of your training to spell guide with a capital G.

I think it’s part of Jez’s training to spell it without. 
 

On the subject of Guide jokes: How do you know you’re in the room with a Guide?

They’ll tell you.