AMGA Rock Program advice
The AMGA's prerequisites and description for the Rock Guides Program does not
provide specific "how-to" guidance in a qualitative way. A trusted mentor is a great place
to get advice about one's readiness for the various stages of the program, as well as
how to plan an effective progression with the separate but equal goals of passing the rock guides
exam and also being a good guide.
My position is that in all disciplines of mountain guiding, personal experience, raw ability, and
movement are the foundation of a guide's competence. Therefore to be a good rock guide, and to
pass an exam, a candidate should consider a holistic view of their competence as a rock climber.
In other words, the ability to help a client realize their goals, a guide must first be able to realize
their own. Mountain sense, and everything packed within it, are not acquired in a book or in a
course, but through a certain amount of varied repetition in a discipline.
It is important to keep in mind why the IFMGA (and therefore the AMGA) has minimum standards;
which is to ensure that guides are always operating within a zone of comfort. Eventually this tends
to be self-regulating, but the understanding is that all guides should have certain minimum
competencies. We all start at different points, have different strengths and weaknesses, and the
history of rock climbing has shown that neither age, size, or gender play any significant limiting
role in one's potential as a rock climber. This fact should free our minds to unlock our potential
through hard work, without excuses, and with an optimistic attitude.
Anyone who has been guiding for a length of time will know first-hand that having a wide-enough
buffer between what one attempts to guide, and what one's personal limits are, is important. Any
number of unforeseen factors can interfere with a person's optimal performance (and I don't limit
the term "performance" here just to physical, but also intellectual/mental tasks associated with
guiding), such as sub-optimal and unpredicted conditions on route, being offroute, being in a
compromised mental, physical, or emotional state, or any number of other surprises that do happen
to guides when out working.
Guides should always have a few "grades in hand," meaning, to be a few grades apart from one's
top capability and what you are guiding, is a sure way to increase the likelihood of success and the
margin of safety for yourself and your client.
Of the disciplines of mountain guiding (rock, ski, alpine) the rock is far and away the most straitforward to
measure objectively. You can either climb a certain grade, or you can't. You can't
survive your way up a climb the same way you can down a steep ski descent.
Honest and accurate self-assessment is crucial to measured and progressive success, as well as a
basic piece of info for forming the most effective plan. In rock climbing this means taking note of
what one achieves in terms of routes climbed, how they were climbed (onsight, redpoint, flash, bail,
ect., how many attempts) and then a clearer picture of oneself emerges.
The famous Alex Lowe quote, "the best climber is the one having the most fun," is a fantastic
overall attitude to have towards climbing, but is not necessarily helpful to developing a concrete
plan of improvement. In effect, the best climber is the one who succeeds in the most number of hard
routes in the fewest number of tries, and in the best style. By this measure Adam Ondra is the best
overall rock climber with well over 100 5.14d's, fastest ascent of the world's hardest bigwall climb,
world cup champion in bouldering and route climbing, and the first ascents of the world's hardest
sport climbs.
But for use mere mortals, to be a certified rock guide means consistently and confidently onsighting
up to 5.10d traditionally protected climbs in the context of multi-pitch rock guiding. So what
follows is a basic prescription of what will give someone the minimum level needed to suceed as a
rock guide and on their rock guide's exam.
Most of the worlds best climbers use redpoint climbing (projects) to help achieve their maximum
level. This in turn helps define minimum onsight. The two are inherently connected. The skills one
learns while projecting hard routes are invaluable to the process of onsighting, which is usually
what happens when guiding on a rock guide's exam and in real life. I am not expert, and no coach
either, but here is a list of achievements that I think would set up anyone for success in terms of
personal movement skills, mountain sense, and comfort necessary to succeed in the often stressful
situation of being examined and more importantly, while guiding or doing a guide's exam.
The cliffnotes version is:
Personal climbing:
1) Redpointing to 12a sport and 11c trad minimum.
2) Consistently onsighting 5.11c sport and 5.11a traditional climbs.
3) Climb Half Dome Regular NW face in a day
4) Climb a grade VI route. (Bonus points for doing this in a day)
5) Focus on difficulty more than length
6) Climb on as many rock types and styles as possible
7) Climb with the best climbers you can
8) Train properly and specifically for rock climbing
Guiding:
1) Guide or mock-guide in as many different types of routes and rock types as possible
2) Focus on client care. This is the most important part of being a guide, and all other "systems"
revolve around it.
3) SPI and rock instructor terrain should not be underestimated in terms of the challenges faced and
the learning that happens there. Smaller terrain is probably the best place hone your "chops" as a
guide. If you currently work a lot in these disciplines you are probably developing a solid repertoire
of the fundamental skills. Rock guiding is not rocket science.
4) Technical guiding skills can be acquired through rote practice. Buy the Mountain Guide Manual
and learn a lot of the stuff in it. Then learn how to apply it correctly. Even still, you don't need to be
good at everything in the book. But have a good handle on a few solutions for all of the common
situations.
5) Seek mentorship. If this means hiring an experienced certified guide to hone your skills then do
it. If you can shadow, do that too.
If you are not unquestionably at the standard of 5.10d onsighting the following route
pyramid is a helpful tool to mark progress and completeness of preparation.
This generally fits for single pitch sport, trad, and bouldering. Every route pyramid should be
specific to each type of climbing. For example, one for sport climbing, one for traditional climbing,
one for bouldering. Lets just say this one below is for single-pitch trad climbing, because that is
most relevant to the AMGA rock guide's exam. Before taking an exam you would want your
previous year's logbook to look like this at the absolute minimum if your goal is to ensure that 5.10d
traditional routes will feel reasonable under the conditions you will face them in the context of a
guiding exam.
5.11d (redpointed one of these in previous year)
5.11c - 5.11c
5.11b - 5.11b - 5.11b - 5.11b
5.11a - 5.11a - 5.11a - 5.11a - 5.11a
5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d - 5.10d (generally onsighting this grade)
The top row is a grade that you have redpointed once. The bottom row is the grade that you can
usually onsight. In order to be at the very minimum exam standard you should have in your recent
experience (previous year) redpointed one tradional climb of 5.11d, or absolute minimum of 5.11c.
This would give you a small margin of ability to consistently and comfortably onsight routes at the
exam standard of 5.10d, while wearing a backpack, and occupying your mind of the complexities of
client care on route such as gear placement, pacing, coaching, hauling, ect.
Bringing up your top end will naturally bring up your bottom end. This is how it works. If you
really sit down and make yourself a route pyramid from, lets say, your previous two years of
climbing, if it doesn't look like this, or is lopsided in some way, you should pay attention to that.
For some guides I imagine they don't do as much effort in redpointing/projecting on traditional
gear. If one only goes out onsight climbing and either fails or succeeds, and never revisits/retries the
pitch in light of failure, they are selling themselves short, and cutting off a well-known and well
tested path to improvement.
Certainly, learning and practicing redpoint/project tactics on sport climbs is more convenient
because of the availability of safe sport climbing, more reasonable to do a larger volume of. In other
words, do a lot of sport climbing, both pushing your onsight capabilities and your max
redpoint.
Because the standard is to be able to guide grade V routes (for full rock guide, or grade III for rock
instructor) you should strongly consider climbing at least 1 grade VI route, if you haven't already.
You can put the route grades (I, II, III, IV, V, VI) in their own route pyramid. If you want to step it
up further, consider climbing a grade VI in a day to ensure that you have a proven ability to be fast
and effecient both as a climber and with technical skills.
If I were to choose one rock climb in America which contains virtually every element of personal
movement and technical skills needed to be a certified rock guide it would be the Regular NW Face
of Half Dome in Yosemite. Its fair to say that a certified rock guide should be able to complete a
one-day ascent of this route with a partner of similar ability, at the time of their exam. It is one of
the most historic and awesome rock climbs in North America, the start of the clean climbing
revolution.
My best advice, nonetheless, is to invest heavily in increasing your max ability as early on in your
climbing/guiding career as possible. That is the piece of advice I most wish I had been given and
listened to. The above route pyramids are simply from which you can accurately measure your
current abilities, and work toward improvement.
Lastly, there are tons of resources for improving at rock climbing. From personal coaches, to books,
to online generalized coaching programs, the list is endless. Here is a list of books that I and many
others have found valuable on the road to self-improvement:
-9 out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistakes, Dave McCleod
-The Rock Warriors Way, Arno Ilgner (because climbing is mostly mental, anyways)
-The Rock Climbers Training Manual, Anderson brothers
-Climbstrong.com, Steve Bechtel's website on which he sells training plans a books
-The Self-Coached Climber, Douglas Hunter
-Mastermind, Jerry Moffat's book on the mental side of climbing
I wish everyone the best of luck out there on your journeys.