Loden trousers and checked shirt, hobnailed boots and hemp rope are no longer the hallmarks of the mountain guide. The outdoor-loving local lad of the early days of mountaineering, who showed well-heeled city-dwellers around his home patch, has now given way to a versatile guide who travels the world.
Thorough training in the alpine sports, covering canyoning, risk management, lifelong learning, many other individually acquired qualifications such as managerial and coaching ability and experiential education skills are today the essential features of the mountain guide’s professional profile. Guides have also become the most important figures in promoting responsible behaviour in the unspoilt countryside and the modern world therefore requires them to have a knowledge of the environmental dimension. However, their job is still to guide and instruct. Competent guidance in all types of terrain enables clients to experience the sense of achievement they crave. In training courses, guides bring on mountain sports enthusiasts to the point where they become independent.
In Austria, more than 300 guides are full-time professionals, but most are part-timers, though no less expert for that: combination with another job opens up new angles.
