Tourism is the most popular type of recreation, vacation, and perhaps for someone’s earnings among the entire population of the Earth. Indeed every person who is tired of working or everyday bustle wants to distract from this, plunge into something new and explore the beauty surrounding us. This is a fairly common situation, and it is for this reason, travel is gaining more and more popularity. It also happens that a person living in a city does not know its sights and surroundings. His movement during the day it’s only from home to work and vice versa. Do not forget that travel is called not only a visit abroad, flights from one part of the world to another, but even a short walk through the local surroundings, a trip to another city that is not far from you. Therefore, any person who has a desire can explore the world.
There are so-called “polymaths” of the city who perfectly know its history, are well versed in the area, and can quickly tell about everything surrounding them. In principle, such people can soon become guides and accompany tourists along a confident route and talk about everything they meet on the way. Specifically, a guide is a specialist who must understand the area and have well-developed critical thinking, emotional and physical endurance, and be able to correctly and efficiently provide information. There are different categories of guides, which depend on the organization of the tour and the composition of the group. For example, guides-guides who can talk about the sights in the course of the bus and conduct a qualified excursion in some museum, temple or historical part of the city. Guides-interpreters who are fluent in a specific foreign language and serve groups of tourists from abroad, and guides-escorts work with groups of local tourists going abroad. There are also mountain guides; they differ from all excellent physical training and endurance. This is the specificity of this category of directory. We invite you to consider all sorts of criteria and actions that will help you become a good guide.
Steps to Become a Mountain Guide
Perhaps someone from childhood dreamed of becoming a guide and guiding tourists through all the sights. Someone only now realized that this is his vocation in life. So, if you love mountains, are fond of skiing or snowboarding, climb in the summer, and regularly train on a climbing wall, if you want to spend as much time as possible in the mountains, connect your profession with them – you have every chance to become a mountain guide. Still, we will help you understand all the features and specifics of this profession. We will analyze in detail the steps of improving yourself to a qualified mountain guide.
An essential part of graduation is to obtain certification that you are a fully trained guide, ready to conquer the peaks and accompany tourists to them. At the same time, you can provide emergency medical care and find a way out of any situation that happens. To obtain the certificate of such associations of mountain guides as IFMGA, AMGA, and PhD, you will have to spend not only a lot of money on additional requirements, expenses, but also many years to train a guide of the highest level in all disciplines (skiing, alpine sports). A certified individual in these associations receives the best skills to make informed decisions that can only be achieved through practice at the highest level for many years.
Psychologically, working as a guide is much more complex than as an instructor. It is advisable to immediately ask yourself the question: «Do you want to be responsible for unfamiliar people in the first place? » Tourists, taking the service of a guide, are wholly located on him and his professionalism. Of course, they want to climb to the top safely, safely descend off the tracks, having the minimum necessary skills to do so. But at the same time, the critical task of the mountain guide remains the safety of tourists. Therefore, a competent guide to use only those techniques that are appropriate on this route, inappropriate use speaks only of incompetence.
There are four main steps to the title of a mountain guide. First, you should independently understand in which sport you are more robust than skiing or mountaineering. You should have at least a little experience climbing the mountain, but it can be developed within a few years if it is not. The second stage – you need to join the association, pass six modules and pass only four exams. An essential condition is an internship between exams. If you go through all the stages without missing a single module and exam, then this is enough to get all the essential information that you will need. The third stage is an internship. For some, it is the most difficult because not everyone has experienced it. In each direction, the training lasts about 14 days. Initially, it would be best if you were an assistant under the supervision of a specialist. Then you will be given clients, and then you must also work independently under the supervision of a specialist. The most recent stage is the week of exams or the so-called time”X.” More precisely, two exams are taken for an intern and another 2 for a certified guide. Usually evaluated according to such criteria during the exam: skills of working with equipment and organizing insurance, customer care, professionalism, skills of movement on mountain terrain, terrain assessment, risk assessment, and application of techniques at the right time, in the right place. A couple of days after the exam, you can get the exam results (passed/did not pass).
Summing up, we highlight an essential thing worth remembering if you want to become a mountain guide. You will have to work with different categories of people, so a successful specialist should have such qualities as friendliness and sociability, responsibility, and sincere love of what you do. Also, do not forget about the constant improvement of qualifications, expanding your horizons, and increasing the amount of your knowledge. This is what will make you a good mountain guide, give you even more self-confidence and inspire you to do what you love.