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A few years ago Martin Volken and I were sitting in our hotel room on day two of guiding the Haute Route, when I looked out the window of our Verbier hotel and noticed La Balme, a 200’ high rock that juts out of the pine forest. “That’s the first rock climb I ever did,” I remarked. Then through the other window I saw the rugged ridgeline 20 kilometers across the valley that separates Switzerland from France and observed that Couloir Barbey, which drops off the summit of l’Aiguille d’Argentiere, was in full view. “And there’s my first ski mountaineering objective,” I said surprised. Now curious, I stepped closer to the window so I could see further to the east and sure enough, Arête Central on Petit Combin was visible. “. . . and that’s my first alpine route,” I chuckled, finding it quite amusing that my entire introduction to alpinism was all visible from one hotel room.

If the trip to Chamonix during Blizzard of Aahhh’s piqued my interest in the big mountains, it was the time I spent with John Falkiner in Verbier in the ensuing years that cemented it. It was Falkiner who took me on each of those adventures and became my first mentor.

Like many adventure skiers, my initial motivation for venturing into the backcountry was driven by the thrill of skiing something challenging. I shake my head in amusement when thinking that my first ski touring objective was Couloir Barbey, a 45 degree, 2000’ couloir on a glaciated peak with plenty of high alpine hazards. It was akin to taking a 5.12 gym climber, who couldn’t even tie a Munter hitch, to climb El Capitan. I had the skiing talent, but lacked the requisite mountaineering skills and mountain sense that is gained only through time in the mountains.

Fortunately, I was intimidated by the alpine environment as much as I was drawn to it, and recognized that if you wanted to play there, you either had to hire a guide or educate yourself. I had more time than money, so I purchased Freedom of the Hills, which most mountaineers recognize as the unofficial text book of their sport, and studied additional books on route finding, navigation, first aid, knots, anchor building, avalanche hazard, and winter camping. Over the next several years, I took as many trips into the mountains as I could, and enrolled in avalanche, rock climbing, glacier travel and crevasse rescue courses, as well as wilderness first aid.

Before long, I found myself at guide tryouts for Rainier Mountaineering and subsequently spent the next two years cutting my teeth on the best high alpine venue in the lower 48. Glaciers add a complex component to alpine travel, and with 26 different glaciers covering Mt. Rainier’s flanks, you couldn’t ask for a better training ground, especially if you had aspirations of traveling in the Alps or any of the heavily glaciated regions around the globe.

Climbing the same mountain over and over again may seem limiting from a learning standpoint, and in some ways it is. However, witnessing the dramatic transformation that a mountain undergoes is an education you don’t get from changing locations frequently.

The hazards on a route can change day to day and certainly week to week. So you can imagine the transition that occurs during the May through September guiding season, let alone from year to year. On one specific slope your primary concern may shift from avalanche danger in early season unconsolidated snow, to crevasse hazard as the snow melts and the bridges become thinner, to rock fall when the melting snow exposes previously buried rocks.

RMI has a great collection of guides and though I learned a lot from them, much of it had nothing to do with mountaineering. It was here that I began learning how to guide. Understanding and balancing a client’s strengths, motivations, and aspirations, with their fears, anxieties and limitations is a craft in itself. Good guides know when to push a client and when to back off, and it’s that delicate balance that separates mountaineers from guides.

Though I cherished my time at RMI, as a skier, it was tough to walk down a perfectly good 9,000 vertical foot ski slope. After my second season, I quit guiding on Rainier and enrolled in AMGA’s newly formed ski mountaineering certification program. About the same time I met Swiss guide Martin Volken. He owned a ski shop and guide service that he ran out North Bend. He is one of the most capable and level headed people you could ever hope to be in the mountains with and I was extremely fortunate to have him as my next mentor. With the help of Martin’s preparation, I passed the AMGA ski mountaineering exam 10 years ago, and have been guiding for him ever since.

I still remember the thrill I got from being in a place where I had absolutely no business being while shooting Blizzard of Aahhh’s in Chamonix. In my eyes, that’s the job of a guide: take someone somewhere they shouldn’t be on their own, and make them feel safe and comfortable. It’s passing on that same exhilaration that makes guiding enjoyable 20 years later.