All this may be true or it may have been at one time however it seems that the 1886 US supreme court ruling granting corporations the rights of a person changed all that. Now these large cooperate interests and their funding are essential to politicians being elected. In fact multinational  corporations need only hint at pulling their interests out of the country and we slink away like a beaten puppy.        The oil industry is a good example. The atrocities committed in countries like Ecuador (Texaco) which dropped tons of toxic sludge into indigenous peoples water system is ignored. Do whatever you like elsewhere but please don't take our jobs away. Really how are we going to afford that 3rd 50" flat screen.  

In a world of emerging economies ( Brazil, India, China) the corps have plenty of places to go and lots of places where these corps can relocate. Ok where is this going? Right back to the title. It just does not pay to care. This is on every level. My civil politicians seem to completely disregard those who elected them. ( in this case it is the location of a pedestrian bridge) on a federal level it gets much worse. We have politicians for whom a $600 dollar a night room is just not good enough it has to be a $1000 a night. $500 dollar diners on Christmas eve written off as a work expense. I can get outraged about this and join the occupy Wall Street movement or resign myself to the fact nothing I do will ever change these people and their disregard for the middle class who supply them with the funds for this lavish lifestyle. So I am going to take the Johnney Depp route and just forget about trying to change anything on any level. Focus on the units I have to raise and prepare them for the coming zombie apocalypse.  This extends from the ACMG to the the less then useless NATO. Far to much time has been spent giving a crap about shit that just doesn't matter in the overall scale of the universe. I'm just going to get myself a prescription of Fukitol and take one a day. Some days I may require a couple but caring about such things is really a waste of time. The world is going to hell in a hand basket however I am living in the best time in human history. However if we do not find a alternative energy source very quickly the quality of life here in North America is going to take a nose dive.

     Lets take a paragraph to talk about this. You see back when I signed on to this guide thing there were only 4 courses. Assist alpine and ski and full alpine and ski. The system had just recently been revamped so that you did not have to do the full program if you choose not to go the full mountain guide program. I am pretty sure this was done to deal with need for labour in the growing heli-ski industry. This was a pretty big change and strayed from the traditional European model where it is all or nothing. Unfortunately I happened along at just the wrong time. The old school guides who had put so much effort into getting the ACMG recognised in Canada and getting it excepted in the IFMGA fold were just handing the structure over to the next generation. This rag tag bunch of bush hippies that were taking over seemed to be less motivated to develop the best guides in the world and from my perspective high jacked the entire association for personal profit. I know these are strong words but at least they are honest and they are mine. (I would love to be proven that this was not the case and I hope that someone will reply in the comment section and change my mind.) 

Lets take a break for a second and watch this video. One I have to collect my thoughts cause I'm getting pissed when I think of all the lost opportunities that the association has wasted

So here we are the year is 1990. Course history is always written by the victors. The victors here are those who walk away with the most work for the least amount of effort. So we went from 4 courses to what we have today.

Assist hiking guide $1870 Full hiking guide $1540 = TOTAL $3410

$3410 for a minimum wage job. You'd be lucky to to get $15.hr Add to that price tag of a week away from work plus the expense of being on the road. ( dedicating 30% of your wages to pay back the cost of the course it would take 85 days! One years entire hiking season. This is assuming you don't fail your flowers ticket.) Now once you have this ticket you can look forward to paying the ACMG somewhere between $250 to $350 a year to belong to the club. Remember that you do not get a vote on constitutional issues only mountain guides get that. The constitution is what matters anything else is just fluff. The other kicker is that you don't have to be a ACMG hiking guide to work in Canada's National Parks. You did have to be at one time but no longer. The companies who hire hiking guides seem to have influenced management to the point that one of the few times in national Parks history they did a sensible thing. So unless you have to work for CMH or Yamnuska Mountain School what is your motivation? The amount that you pay would pay for your own private insurance for 3 years. Now you are a company with change in your pocket. While big companies like backroads may consider this on your resume they are more concerned if you have that squeaky clean look that fits into their corporate image. 

  Climbing Gym Instructor Level 1, 2 and 3    $1,110

"Doesn't really matter to us if they are certified we have to retrain them anyhow"
Walson Tye owner of the three biggest gyms in Calgary and Flashed 

If working in a climbing gym has been your life long dream then this is probably a good way to go. Course your going think that the hiking guides are racking it in like apple stockholders when you see your first paycheck.

You'll make about 30% more if you grab a day job flipping burgers at dairy queen. Really? Take a look at what they are going to teach you. You could go get a copy of Freedom of the Hills and that would cover 85% of it assuming you can read. If your a young pup why not go to the gym owner and ask him for a job. When he say's no or maybe ask to shadow one of his lead instructors. You will most likely get a lot more practical experience this way. In the meantime study movement skills, body kinetics. Anything that will make you a better instructor. Understanding motivation and the human personality will serve you well.

While these courses are not super expensive nor are they time consuming it is just a question of are the necessary. Course the question from my point of view is what is the Canadian Association of Mountain Guides doing teaching 2 day indoor climbing gym courses. I understand the umbrella concept that has engulfed the executive mindset. 

So I put my application in to get reinstated with the ACMG. I took the 4/5 years off to watch kids while my wife finished her guides exams. I'll tell you taking care of those units is a hell of a lot harder the making sure your sorry ass comes home in one piece. Of course I have to get upgraded so that I am state of the art guiding product. I have to hire a approved instructor for a day ($500) or attend a guides staff training for 2 days ($000.00). The thing is I am wondering how they came to this conclusion. I have been to lets say 15 staff training sessions with Yamnuska mountain school, Canadian Mountain Holidays, etc, etc.. The concepts are always very basic as it is mostly about standardizing the systems that we will use when faced with this or that situation. I have worked as a guide for 20 years full time and part time the last 5 years. In that time I have faced more situations then I can remember. Electrical storms, blizzards, frostbite, altitude sickness, spontaneous rock fall, man made rock fall, bear charges (wanna stop one of those things from charging take away it's credit card) and the list goes on and on. I don't really see any benefit from this latter choice unless I was asked to teach it. 

       Heres the kicker there is no second option for most people. I just talked to Yamnuska Mountain School and they find it strange that the ACMG would suggest this as a option as they are the only school in western Canada with this kind of staff training. Most guides who are required to do this would have no intention of working for Yamnuska so what is in it for Yamnuska. Nothing! It dilutes their training which is a expensive process with very little benefit. 

      So I will be doing Yamnuskas staff training but have requested a certified TRU instructor. This guy/gal is going to teach me everything that has changed in the last 4 years. Outside of the introduction of belaying off the anchors which one of the guide guru's considers the next thing to slice bread and not sure what else there is. Guess that's why I am paying the big bucks. So lets video this process and review what I am learning. Then you folks will be state of the art just like me.

Snow boarder doing that snowboard thing

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So if we are going to stick to old school rules then I guess I get to fill my gear room with bolt hangers shortly. You know that everybody’s favorite play ground Haffner Creek
Flashback: (insert wave music, and drop transition) The year is 1992 and ice climbing is gaining popularity and in a desperate attempt to find places to take clients I followed up on a rumor that there was ice in the area of Marble Canyon. This was reported by skiers so it was fairly unreliable. As we all know now there is ice. In fact there was a lot more ice then is common now. I took a lot of groups in there for years before it was discovered by the general public. It was at least 5 years after we started using the place that the first bolted mixed climb went up. In those years we had climbed without bolts pretty much every route ( with the exception of one or two). Every year the ice would form differently, much more so because people were not kicking the shit out of it from the day the first smear forms. So I guess you guys went and bolted my routes without asking me. Now do I get to remove those bolts and put the place back the way it was when I climbed it or do I except that the times they are a changing. Haffner is not the only place that you the general public has poached my routes. Back in 86/87 Brian Ebert and I started climbing in the Grassi Lake climbing area. I see now that several of the routes that we did with gear and pins are now bolted. We left anchors on top and pins on the route. Thats the way we marked routes ”back in the day” We did several routes before abandoning the place because we considered the rock to shitty to be of any value. (who knew). You knew, thats who.
I think if you pull out your Alpine Journal 1994 or 1995 there is a article about the bolting of stations on ice climbs by Joe Josephson. I have to admit to being a bit miffed by the article not because of what it said but by not being given equal billing from my point of view. Back then ice climbing was making a transition partly because gear was getting better and climbing was becoming more mainstream. However the climbs in the area were littered with ribbits (not bolts) and pitons ( some good some not, there is no way to visually inspect the quality of these pieces of protection). After Josephson’s book hit the shelves hundreds of new climbers came into being in a very short time. I remember soloing up Rogan’s gully and running into a young guy and his girlfriend and they were following the route description and descending the way they came up. When I saw them they were preparing to rap off a single piton as that was all that was there for a anchor. There was no Ice for a abalakov which wouldn’t matter as that type of anchor had yet to be excepted by the mainstream public and had just begun to be taught by guides. There was no ice in Rogan’s for a anchor anyhow. The rest of the route was pretty much the same, just a mish mash of pins and tree anchors. Ever try and descend Ur’s Hole before the bolted stations? It was a lot of down climbing and the odd poorly placed pin station. “The Professors Falls” back then had an average of 5 parties a day mainly because you could drive right up to where the Parks Sign is and the trail into the Forrest started. Over the Christmas and spring climbing season you could have in excess of 30 climbers on the route ( some of you must remember that). It would take some parties half a hour to create a two screw station, the average was perhaps 15 minutes. I was there at least once a week for the entire winter and decided to take it upon myself to place bolted stations on the route to help alleviate the problem. At the time this was a sacrilegious act. Made even more so by not asking Josephson and his rat pack for permission. The penalty is exile and I didn’t get to hang with the cool kids. Admittedly I didn’t always place the anchors in the right place but I was new to the game and as I learnt I went back and moved things around so that things were better placed. It was a period of transition. The number of climbers in the Rockies had increased 10 fold and the place was getting crowded yet the stations (almost always) were only designed for the descent of the first acentists yet were increasing being used by more and more people. The times they were a changing. Who remembers Polar Circus and pile poorly placed pin stations. In a “Night of Lies” evening a couple years ago (when Graham used it as a personal platform to tell us all how much he hated bolts, which would mean more if he ever climbed a route that didn’t have bolts on it) Rafael questioned our need for bolted chain stations on a place with so much fat ice. However in 91 we were still using electrical conduit and our beloved Abalakov had yet to be tested and excepted. In fact the first Abalokov I ever rapped off of was on the first ascent of Arctic Dream winter 91/92. Josephson and his classmates at U of C had been testing the things. I started teaching them as a viable anchor the following winter. I am getting off topic now. As questionable as our actions may have been at the time they they were with the best of intentions (right or wrong) for the general public. The verbal minority was disregarded because they were exactly that. Of course the argument was made that we (meaning I) were simply bolting this stuff to make our work easier and safer. We had taken the spirit of adventure out of ice climbing. Some of which can be claimed as true but the times they were a changing.
It surprises me how selective the verbal minority can be sometimes. Didn’t hear much out of these people when we fixed the rap route on Mount Louis, Grand Sentinel, Castle Mountain. Borguea left hand, all the climbs in Field, etc, etc. Murray was pretty pissed when we bolted the stations on Escargot Corner and placed 3 directional bolts to protect the the second. We didn’t ask the first acentists on those routes but it certainly seemed like the right thing to do.
So who gets to say what the standard is? Who gets to create social norm? I remember back in 1987 when Shep, Dube put up that 5.13 test piece in Grotto Canyon the first of it’s kind. Course they had to drill a pocket that brought it down from 5.16 to a grade they could climb. The Calgary Mountain Club produced a newsletter that was nothing more then childish name calling. Granted they were passionate about their sport but at the same time were imposing their version of what was right and what was not right, not based on what the rest of us wanted (or some of at least). A good percentage of those reading this right now had yet to be born or enter grade school. So this has been going on for awhile. If you don’t think that history repeats it’s self. Take a look at Tonka pitch three. I climbed it didn’t like the grade and used my drill and a chisel to enhance a foot hold and a side pull. I also placed the bolts so close together that if you wanted to you could pull through this section of the route. After dozens of trips up and down that mountain cleaning and bolting and seven years in the making I figured out the grade that I wanted it to be at knowing full well the rathe that I would be facing because I failed to conform to some perceived standard.
End part one “The times they are a changing”

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Well Sloan
    As simple that question may sound it leaves it’s self open to multiple interpretation.
What is going to do you the most good out in the back country miles or even days from the real world. Besides first party rescue to critical injuries. After the party member has been stabilized what then. Do you leave your injured comrade and head out to get help.
and what if, just what if a bear or a cougar, wolves even come upon the fresh blood of the nearly unconscious victim. Yes he is now a victim of your poor planning. And for that mistake he is going to be eaten alive and suffer a long and agonizing death.
    Scenario 2: In this scenario you have cell phone coverage. Right after accident you phoned 911. They put a trace on your cell and determined your location in less then 5 minutes. The chain of command is set in motion and the proper response team will be dispatched. In the mean time you gather wood for the coming darkness. Build a warm fire and attend your friend. You hear wild animals in the woods. No matter you build a big fire and are prepared to give your life in defense of your comrade.
Help arrives and all ends well and you are the hero.

Communication: Being able to communicate with the outside world in a worse case scenario is something that I can’t stress enough. Does the area that you are planning to cover have cell coverage? If so approx. range and tower location. Not one to belabor a point but I have seen the wonder of communication.

Let me tell you a little story;
There is this little waterfall in Field BC called Guinness Gully. Easy grade 4 made easier by the amount of traffic that it sees. Well Field did not have cell coverage until recently and I am not 100% certain that it does now. A seasoned climber tripped and sustained a suspected spinal injury. The reporting party had to descend two pitches return to their vehicle 10 to 15 minutes away drive into town 10 minutes contact the authorities. Fortunately for the climbers the wardens were having a get together in nearby Lake Louise. Within the hour a team was on scene and equipment arrived. The problem of course is dealing with a immobilized person two pitches up technical terrain. It took a considerable amount of resources to make this happen and the victim did not get to the ambulance till many hours after the accident happened.  
    part two to this story same waterfall two weeks earlier. I am out for a day of ice climbing on moderate terrain. Slightly resentful of having the Brick along. The Brick is a parks radio that my wife carries when ever we go climbing. I was for leaving it at the base then we wouldn’t have to bring a pack along and get in and out of there quick. I didn’t waste my breath and packed our lunch and extra gloves and such into a small pack.
       Their was a party of 4 ahead of us which broke into 2 climbing teams on the second pitch. It was a nice day maybe -8C but that seemed balmy after the week or two of minus 20. Just about when this looks like a good thing to be doing the young lady on the right comes flying over the waterfall and everything changed.
Out came the BRICK called was placed to dispatch within two minutes of the accident happening. I helped stabiles the victim while we administered what first aid we could. Th victim was not conscious but condition improved over time. parks made first fly by in about 20 minutes. Set down for staging at the stables below the climb. Brought in one Warden and then the second with a vacuum splint. Called in the Heli and long-lined the victim tour the awaiting ambulance. Second load was her friend and the last warden. We were left to clean up the gear and descend on our own. The 4 of us reached the car well before dark.