I will come again and conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow. As a human, I can.

A story about a man who lost his heart to the mountains and now earns his living with showing their beauty to those who want to see it.

Felix, you are about to start your own mountain school, together with Tobi, a friend of yours. What got you to that point, what did you do before?

After I finished school I did my carpenter training, which took me 3 years, and worked as a carpenter for another 2 years before I decided to join the armed forces. I didn’t do the regular career in the armed forces, but was lucky enough to join the skied armed forces. The skied armed forces are there to scout mountain areas and to be used in the most difficult surroundings in case of a war. For us this ment to train, train, train. We ran up mountains and practiced our skills in skiing, climbing and any other mountain sports like only the pro athletes could do. We also participated in many ski touring races and I had some really good results there.

That of course motivated me to go even faster and mountain sports became kind of an addiction for me.

After five years in duty I was discharged from the army, as it’s common. I said it before, I was already kind of addicted to spending my days outside in nature, getting to know new places and spending my time practicing my mountain sports skills. I had a conversation with a friend of mine and told him I was thinking about becoming a mountain guide. He confirmed my thoughts by telling me he’d also love to do this, so we decided to apply to do the mountain guide education.

I assume you guys were successful with your appliance. How hard was the mountain guide education?

Yes, we were successful. One has to fill out a tour report to be able to do the suitability test. I could easily do that due to my time in the skied armed forces, where we climbed many mountains and I also passed the suitability test. For someone who’s not trained well this test is very hard, but I had again the advantage of my five years of hard training every day, so this test was not too hard to pass. The test is not what you might imagine, a day on the mountain with someone watching you, it takes at least 4 months to complete the test, as there are summer and winter parts that obviously can’t be done in one day. In my group there were 35 participants in the test and only three of us passed it. I think that’s because most people are specialized in one or two things. Mostly it’s either skiing or climbing.

But as a mountain guide you need to have great skills in all types of mountaineering.

I was one of those who passed the test, luckily, and was able to start the education. All together we had a group of 10 people doing the mountain guide training. One might think that mountain people are lonely wolves, fighting on their own and always like to compete against each other, but in our group it was completely different. We became friends pretty fast and always tried to help each other as best as possible, as we wanted the whole group to finish the education. I think this never happened before, but all of us passed the test at the end of our two year long journey. That was not too long ago actually, we finished the training in april 2022.

That’s amazing! Have you done some guides with clients already?

Of course, one needs to work as a trainee at a mountain school to be able to do the final test. I had many guided tours and this is, obviously, very different from doing your own sports at your own pace.

It’s very nice to give people the possibility to reach peaks they would not reach without you and it’s amazing to spend time with strangers and get to know them so well after only a few hours or days of spending time together.

But it’s also challenging. I just finished my training and I always communicate this to my clients, as I think an open communication is the foundation for everything. Sometimes they were a bit suspicious about this fact and the fact I’m not a 60 year old guide with decades of experience. This showed me that it’s very important for a mountain guide to be confident, to be able to make quick and good decisions and to talk to the clients. When someone is suspicious because I just finished my training I’m telling them that’s actually the best thing that can happen to them, as I’m well trained, have the latest knowledge about how to use gear or about first aid. And that’s the truth. It turns out, once you show people that you can guide them and they feel comfortable and safe with you, they will book again, even if they were suspicious at first.

Why did you decide to start your own mountain school and not to work for an existing one?

Well, that has many reasons. The most obvious one is that the mountain school has to take back some money for themselves, as they need to pay for many things, such as insurance, admin work and so on. So, if you do a guiding for another climbing school the money is always shared between the guide and the school. The second reason is that me and the friend who’s my co-founder wanted to make our own thing.

It’s just nicer to work for yourself instead of for someone else.

We can now think of our own tours and are very free to design everything the way we want it to have. Although we already realised having our own mountain school brings many duties with it, such as building a website, searching for clients, being present on social media. There’s not only benefits. But I’m sure it’s worth the effort.

I am convinced it is! That sounds really exciting. Do you have a funny story about a guide that you can share with us?

Ahm, yes. Few weeks ago I did a guide in Switzerland that was five days long. On the first day one of my clients said something like “I’m happy my backpack is getting lighter and lighter every day”. I was not really sure what he wanted to say, because we didn’t plan to leave anything behind. When we made a break he pulled out a Capri-Sun out of his backpack. You know, these little plastic bags with sweet juice in them. I asked him how many he has in there and he replied: “Well, five for every day”.

I couldn’t believe it. He brought 25 Capri-Sun in his backpack. That’s about five kilos (~11 lb)!

After drinking the first one he realised it was a mouthful of liquid and he was still thirsty afterwards. So, we left the Capri-Suns behind and he felt better having a lighter backpack and having a bottle of water with him. This taught me to check every clients backpack before we even leave.

Hilarious. I’m having one last question. What skills does a mountain guide need to bring?

Well, obviously he or she needs to be highly skilled when it comes to every kind of mountain sport. As I said before, there’s no way to become a mountain guide when you can climb the hardest pitches but can’t ski down a steep slope. And the other way round. But that’s obvious. Another thing a mountain guide needs to bring is resilience. You will need it to do the training and you will need it to do the guiding. This is something I even underestimated a bit. When you are a guide and have a group of people for many days you are the guide 24/7. There’s no break. You can’t go home to your house and sit on the couch in the evening. Of course in return you can spend nice evenings with your clients and have fun with them. Another thing you need to bring is a good portion of humour. It’s important to have a good relationship with your clients and also for yourself, to not take everything too seriously and personally. A mountain guide needs to be confident in making decisions and to communicate them in a way that people understand why one made them and don’t start a discussion.

You are the guide, you need to know where to go, how fast or slow to go, when to turn around in extreme situations and your clients need to trust you.

So, trustworthiness is also important. That seems like a lot, and it is a lot, but when you’re passionate about being a mountain guide this all comes naturally. Except for the skills, you just need to practice and never stop practicing.