Why Climb With Alpine Guides?

By focusing on alpinism and traditional adventure climbing, we've been able to concentrate 20 years of experience and knowledge into what we believe is the best mountain guiding service available.

All of our mountain guides specialise in alpinism and trad rock and ice climbing, focussing their work on these particular disciplines as opposed to sport climbing, fixed rope expeditions or other forms of guiding. This extra focus, knowledge and expertise allows us to offer high levels of instruction and guiding, delivered by people who are truly dedicated to the sport. We think you'll notice the difference in our team, who are renowned for their enthusiasm, knowedge and skill on the mountain.

All of our itineraries are planned with flexibility in mind, which means choosing meeting points, accommodation and transport to give us as many options as possible. Our guides have a very wide knowledge of different climbing regions across the Alps and the Uk, so if the weather and conditions work against us, we still have the ability to move to other areas in order to keep climbing - rather than being tied to a particular place and having to make the best of it. As anyone who's spent any amount of time in the mountains knows, it can be very frustrating being stuck in the wrong place during poor weather, rather than doing what you came to do! Sometimes this means moving considerable distances, but as a result we always manage to go climbing and give you a good holiday.

We are a small outfit with just a handful of guides, which means we get to know our clients well and build up many lasting friendships over the years. This helps us a lot when planning and tailoring itineraries - often we involve clients in planning our programs, so you get an input into the trips that we run. Because of this, we hit the ground running each week, so you get far more done when you climb with us.

We all know that climbing in a group with similar fitness and experience is more enjoyable than when people have widely differing abilities. That's why we make a big effort to advise people carefully and ask the right questions, in order to make sure that everyone has the right skills and fitness for each trip. We do this in order that you'll have a good trip and hopefully we'll see you again - but also because it's safer for everyone and makes our guiding work much more enjoyable. The guide who answers your email and gives you advice before the trip, also has to manage the consequenses on the hill - which makes big a difference to the quality of advice you get!

We're very keen on taking photos! All the images you see on the website were taken by guides and clients on our regular climbing weeks or 'area research' trips - ie we haven't paid a professional photographer, or purchased images from a photo library just to dress the site. If you bring along a USB stick, we'll give you plenty of great photos of your trip, or post them out to you later on a CD.