Five Reasons to Hire a Guide

While many of us are experiential learners who have developed their outdoor skills through trial and error over many trips, there are many benefits from using a professional guide to help you turn your dream adventure into a reality. While there are certainly numerous reasons to seek professional guidance to safely “learn the ropes”, I will highlight five of the top reasons to hire a mountain guide.

1. Local terrain knowledge.

           

So you just saved up all your vacation time from the past year to be able to take a trip to climb a peak in a mountain range you have never visited. Do you want to spend half of your trip wondering if you are off-route or inadvertently in dangerous terrain? Snow, glacier conditions and avalanche conditions change rapidly and dynamically- going with someone who has intimate knowledge of your route in a variety of conditions will keep you safer and perhaps more successful.

2. Ability to match your ability and goals to a trip.

Whether you are a casual climber or hiker who wants to do a unique and fun trip once a year, or a keen mountain climber looking to develop skill sets to be more self-reliant, working closely with a professional guide can help you customize your mountain experience. Guides carefully match the challenge of a route with the desired outcomes of their guests to deliver the best education or experiential outcome.

3. Experience in managing groups in the mountains.

Sure, you just joined a local Meet Up style group that offers climbing trips. But what kind of qualifications do these trip leaders have, and how much responsibility do they have for you if something happens? Signing up for a group trip through a guide service will ensure safe and prudent group sizes, and attention to risk management so that all participants have their needs met. Plus, you usually eat a whole lot better on guided trips!

4. Qualifications and certifications.

Mountain climbing and backcountry adventuring can already be a dangerous activity, so seek out a guide who has passed formal internationally recognized exams through the American Mountain Guiding Association (AMGA). The long and rigorous process to become a certified guide involved not only guiding exams and professional development courses, but also wilderness medical training and attention to teaching outdoor-based curriculum.

5. You just want to get out and hike or climb, but can’t find a partner!

It can be frustrating to have to deal with schedule conflicts, partners who bail, and friends who just aren’t interested in another one of your half-cocked trip plans, so hiring a guide can take away a lot of the stress of planning a trip. Guide services work with your schedule, deal with the logistics and permits, and get everything lined up so that you get to show up and have fun without all the hassle of finding an appropriate partner.

Spring Skiing in the High Sierra

 Wow. I am always surprised when I realize how long it has been since the last post, this time no exception. Time has just been flying here on the Eastside. The climbing and skiing have been fantastic, and the guiding season has really not slowed down at all, so it has been quite a busy time for me.

The only trips I have been able to take out of the area this winter, since returning from Europe, were professional development courses or exams. Happy to say I am now an AIARE Level 1 Instructor, and a certified AIARE Level 3 Avalanche professional.

Recently, with the amazing spring-like conditions we have been experiencing, Sierra Mountain Center has run some very fun winter mountaineering programs, and the first of several Sierra ski tours. We have been patiently waiting for a good winter to run these tours again, and have found that conditions are great once you arrive at the higher elevations.

A couple weeks ago, Richard and Tony joined me for a great ski from Mammoth Mountain to June Lakes, via the PCT High Trail. Great views of the Ritter Range were had throughout, we had a couple of incredible campsites, one underneath an ancient looking juniper looking south to the Silver Divide, and fine snow conditions. Ending in June also meant that we got to end the trip with a fun run down the Hourglass Couloir in the Negatives.

 After a fun climb up Mini Morrison Peak with a bunch of enthusiastic scouts from La Jolla, SP Parker and I took 4 guests out on another ski tour. Both of us took our guests out of June Lake, up and over San Joaquin Ridge to Thousand Island Lake, where the snowpack is fat and the coverage is good. SP left early on day 3 as his trip was a shorter introductory tour, while I continued on with Andrew and Madeleine to complete the Yosemite High Country Tour.

 This great tour takes you into seldom visted terrain along the Eastern Border of Yosemite National Park. We went over the high passes of Lost Lakes and the Kuna Connection, and had some really good ski runs along the way.

 We ended at Tioga Pass, and skied and walked down the road to our waiting shuttle.

 Now it looks like winter is returning to the Sierra Nevada, with a week or more of forecasted snow in the high country. This means that the skiing up high will continue to be good, so we are looking forward for both personal and guided ski tours to begin again once the weather clears.

All the best! Ryan

Wet and Wild in Miter Basin!

Since it is now officially the 21st century, I have finally decided to get with the times and move this blog over to its own page, www.ryanhuetter.com.  The format will remain the same, and all of the old trip reports and posts will still be available.  So to start this thing off on a good note, here is a brand spankin' new TR from a trip over the past week into the Miter Basin- enjoy!



Once in a while, we get a trip that comes in that is off the beaten path and offers a chance at something new and adventurous.  Last week, Bob Miller returned to SMC with an ambitious plan to hike into the less travelled Miter Basin, south of the Whitney Zone, to climb some of the high peaks which surround the basin.  Having never climbed any of these peaks myself, I was excited to get out and see some new areas, and onsight guide in new terrain.



Miter Basin is approximately 11 miles in from the Horseshoe Meadows trailhead, no matter if you go over New Army or Cottonwood Pass, so the food dehydrating prep and the lightweight tester gear I had made the packs nice and light on the way in.  Sadly, when we arrived at the parking lot the skies had just opened up and the rain was torrential.  Thank God for the umbrellas.




Hours of hiking in the rain got us to our camp in the basin, and we got enough of a clearing to dry out briefly.  Before the thunder and lightening arrived again and gave us a fireworks show through the night that we won't soon forget!



The weather was a factor on this trip, for sure.  We woke up late on a couple mornings, having to wait for the morning showers to clear out before committing to our peak of the day, and we had to hustle a bit more than normal to get things done before the afternoon storms unleashed again, but despite these concerns, we had opportunities to climb every day, so we were successful in our ascents of Mt. Pickering (13,474), Mt. LeConte (13,960+), and Mt. McAdie (13,799).



Each day saw us commute through lush alpine meadows and past deep azure lakes, teeming with large golden trout, and our routes were often interesting adventures through complex rocky terrain, with amazing views, especially north to the Whitney Massif.



After 3 days of peak bagging we had to head back, managing to reach the trailhead just in time to avoid the first of the afternoon thundershowers, with new experiences to recall and new objectives to look forward to.

Crystal Crag West Couloir

A couple weeks ago I got to guide a really cool trip for SMC- the West Couloir to the South Ridge of Crystal Crag.  I climbed with Alex Caillat, who I have done a bunch of stuff with over the past year (Mountain Madness in the Palisades!) and Nayan Savla, his friend from Santa Barbara.  Both are keen to get into ice and mixed climbing so we first spent 2 days working on ice skills in Lee Vining Canyon.

Crystal Crag is a great climb, summer or winter; the only catch when you climb it in winter is that you need to ski approx. 10 miles round trip to make it happen!



































So we got Alex and Nayan set up with AT gear and got skiing out of Twin Lakes by 6:30am.  
The day was a perfect warm and sunny day, so in no time were we booting up to begin the climbing below the West Couloir.  The snow conditions were less than ideal, with 16" of loose sugary facets sitting on top of the older crust.  This made for slow going and interesting mixed climbing through the narrow chokes up higher, but Alex and Nayan both cruised through once I got the rope up there.
After we hit the ridge the climbing became much more like the classic Sierra 4th class ridges we all love, and we hung out on the summit for a bit before picking our way down the West Face, which unfortunately also was a bit hairy with all the loose unconsolidated snow.  
A little bit of survival skiing down to Crystal Lake and then through the Lake George Gully got us back to the cars by 7pm, leaving the crux of the day for Alex and Nayan, who still had to drive back to SB!  
Enjoy the pics, courtesy Nayan Savla.

Mountain Madness in the Palisades!

Ah, the Palisades.  The Sierra Nevada have a lot to offer, but it is in the upper reaches of the South and North Forks of the Big Pine where a truly spectacular and humbling mountain environment exists.  Here the mountains rise up in the greatest grouping of 14,000 ft peaks in the range, dropping down along their gendarmed and complex ridges and faces towards the Palisade glacier and a host of milky azul lakes and groves of aspen and lodgepole pine.  In other words, it is pretty cool.  

Over the past week I have climbed a cool route on Temple Crag with my friend Jonathan Cooper, and then guided a 5 day mountain camp for Sierra Mountain Center along with fellow guide Andrew Soleman.  With Pete, Alex and Bronson, we worked on snow and rock skills, then put those new skills to the test on the Fornication Arete of Mt. Robinson, the Yellow Brick Road on Mt. Gayley, and the Starr Route on Mt. Sill.  

With incredible (and very windy) weather, we were able to do all the climbing we hoped for, and have a really fun time on the way.  

Thanks to Tom Kurzeka, our tireless (now probably pretty tired) intern, who took most of these photos for me as we climbed our routes.  

Coop navigates the upper reaches of Venusian Blind

The Youth, doing his best to make a graceful entrance into Third Lake

Pete Barry enjoys the corners on Fornication Arete

Pete climbing over towers high on Mt. Robinson

Andrew brings Alex and Bronson over the first tower

Alex self arrests high above Moraine Lake

Above the L-shaped snowfield, into the rock part of the Starr Route

Atop Mt. Sill, perhaps the single greatest vantage point in the Sierra

Lowering down after climbing Mt. Sill in a vrey quick camp to camp time

The season is really just getting started, and it is shaping up to be a very fun one with a lot of good trips coming up- Whitney, Mt. Lyell, Temple Crag, Crystal Crag, the list goes on!  

Now it is time for some relaxing and being light duty for the next week...