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THANKS FOR VISITING OUR NEW WEBSITE!
My wife Karen and I are extremely excited to be launching our international, independent guide service. We are offering custom trips that are truly special because they are developed with you, for you. Much of our business is from returning clientele who have become friends over the years. I have met some extraordinary people in my years of guiding since 1993. They have come to expect a high level of professional service and expertise. They know when they hire me they are getting a guide with the highest international guiding credentials and the proven ability to really take them to the mountains. I look forward to getting the chance to meet you and to accompany you on your adventure of a lifetime. See you in the Mountains!
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ABOUT OUR GUIDE SERVICE
We are a small, independent, international guide service, based near Bishop, California, at the foot of the Sierra. Keeping our guide business small allows us to be 100% responsible for the quality of our trips. It allows us the freedom and flexibility to provide you with the best possible experience. From start to finish, you interact directly with Howie, owner and guide. When you book a trip, you know exactly who your guide will be. Before, during, and after a trip you will get a consistent and personal service. We love to travel, climb, and ski. We hand-select the trips we offer and deal with our guests directly so that we can stay 100% excited about our work. Being based in the Eastern Sierra is a lot of fun and gives us easy access to some of the finest mountains in the U.S.! |
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Custom Trips, a standard feature. All guided mountain adventures are best when designed specifically for the participants, therefore we custom design trips for you at no extra cost. Every page of this website features a sampling of suggested trips, but we encourage you to explore the many mountain options. We pay serious attention to our trip screening process, which is always done by Howie (your guide). If your ultimate goals seem beyond your abilities we will let you know, rather than just sell you a trip. We want you to be satisfied and to come back again and again. We are willing to work with you to achieve your mountain goals. |
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Low climber/skier-to-guide ratios. Many larger American guide services have adapted their programs to accommodate larger group sizes with fewer guides. This maximizes profits and sometimes leads to lower prices, but we feel lower ratios are generally much safer, more efficient, more successful, and more enjoyable. We carefully consider the nature of the terrain, the activity, and the people in the group when we decide on a maximum guiding ratio. The decision is based on safety, enjoyment, and group flexibility needs. High ratio guiding techniques simply don’t apply with adequate margins of safety to the kinds of alpine trips we offer, and we feel they are largely unsatisfying in comparison. |
| Personal Relationships. We love that we get the opportunity to personally get to know everyone we do business with. We cherish the friendships we have developed over the years with our returning clientele. We feel it is inevitable that experiences in the mountains should bring people together. Climbing and skiing with good friends is one of the best things in life. |
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| Learning Progression. We recognize that climbing and skiing are skills that are continually developed. The learning process is never complete. Howie and Karen have experience as teachers and instructors in many realms including: Professional Ski & Climbing Instruction, Avalanche Education, Winter Mountaineering, Wilderness Travel, and Natural History. All of our trips include instruction and coaching in mountain movement and technique. We pride ourselves on our ability to deliver a hands-on teaching progression that can get you climbing and skiing at high levels quickly and effectively. We have seen some amazing results!! |
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Leave No Trace. Howie & Karen are dedicated to the preservation of the Mountain Experience and Local Mountain Culture. Karen is a former NOLS instructor and Howie is a Leave No Trace Trainer. We follow minimum impact and culturally sensitive principle/practices that are appropriate to our locations. We want to do our part to have a positive effect on the land and people we come in contact with as recreational visitors. We feel very privileged to be able to travel and explore the mountains of the world, and we think of it as our responsibility to preserve the experience for the future. |
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UIAGM/IFMGA Certified Mountain Guide. |
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AMGA Guide Instructor & Examiner. Howie has participated as a guide instructor and examiner for the AMGA’s Guide Training and Certification Program. He also serves as an advisor on the AMGA Ski Discipline Subcommittee and is a member of the AMGA Technical Committee. More about the AMGA |
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A.I.A.R.E. Avalanche Instructor Qualification. A.I.A.R.E. (the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education) qualifies instructors to teach avalanche courses. Howie has served on the Technical and Educational Committees of A.I.A.R.E. since its inception in 1998 and has been integral in the development of its Levels 1, 2, & 3 avalanche courses. He is currently one of only a few guides qualified to lead teach A.I.A.R.E. Level 3 avalanche courses, which are required for AMGA Ski and Alpine Guide Certification. More about AIARE |
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Experience. Howie first started alpine climbing at the age of 15 on a summer trip to the Tetons. The highlight of the trip was climbing the Grand Teton via the upper Exum Route with famous Yosemite climber Chuck Pratt. Howie decided there that he wanted to spend the rest of his life climbing mountains. Since then, he has climbed, skied, and/or guided rock, ice, and snow, throughout the U.S., Alaska, South America, Europe, Canada, Southeast Asia, and Mexico. He has been a professional guide since 1993. Howie's depth and diversity of experience has greatly benefited his mountain sense and abilities. He continues to seek out diverse and interesting challenges in the mountains that help him to grow as a guide, alpinist, and ski mountaineer. Howie combines his extensive professional experience and formal guide training to offer a world-class guide service. |
| Technical Ability. Although it is not necessary that any guide be among the technical elite when it comes competitive sport climbing and extreme skiing, it is important that you know your guide meets at least a minimum technical standard in the terrain you wish to travel. AMGA and IFMGA Certified Guides have proven to meet that standard. You can rest assured that Howie is youthful and super-fit, sometimes appearing only as a colorful blur of metal and synthetic fabric when he moves in the mountains. He is often seen climbing 5.12 rock, WI6 ice, and M8 mixed, and skiing 55-degree slopes in a variety of snow conditions in both free and fixed heel gear with aplomb. |
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The guiding simply cannot happen without Karen. She is Howie’s teammate in business and in life. Karen is an accomplished skier, climber, and outdoor leader for NOLS. She likes hiking, skiing steep powder, and climbing long alpine rock routes. Karen has recently embarked on a lifelong dream of becoming an entrepreneur. She is preparing to open a retail shop in Bishop, CA called Sage to Summit, which will sell goods for endurance mountain sports. When she is not busy working, she loves to live and play in mountains. If mountain smiling were a competitive sport, she would be on the US Olympic team with her alpine perma-grin. Karen’s zest for life is contagious and she is often requested by clients to accompany us on our skiing and climbing trips because they enjoy her company so much. Although she is not a mountain guide, she sometimes helps on our technical trips as logistical coordinator and social consigliere. |
