The Patagonia Mountain Guide School

Course Description

The Patagonia Mountaineering School Guide Training Program is unique in the outdoor industry. The process of learning to be a leader and guide is multifaceted; aspirant guides must be technically competent and experienced in the mountains, but also need to develop and foster a range of skills associated with client management and group leadership.

Outdoor leadership and guide training programs today, in institutions ranging from universities to climbing clubs, place a major emphasis on acquiring personal experience and technical skills. The development of group management, risk management, instruction, and outdoor leadership skills is often relegated to a few short lectures. For guides, however, these skills are critical and in many instances are more important than pure technical ability. Like all skills, they must be learned, honed, and perfected over time and with experience.

The Patagonia Mountaineering School Guide Training Program is the first of its kind to provide you with real life opportunities to teach, lead, and work with clients directly, throughout your training.

The program is run in five modules, totaling twenty-one months in length. Upon successful completion of the program, you will be a fully qualified and certified Wilderness Education Association Mountaineering Instructor Guide.

WEA Instructor training involves multiple steps. Initially, you will train as a WEA “Outdoor Leader,” a basic outdoor certification that qualifies you for internships and entry-level guide positions. Six months later, you will participate in a WEA “Instructor Trainer” course, outlining the skills necessary to become a fully qualified guide. Finally, you will be assessed as an apprentice guide. If your assessment is successful, you will then be a qualified WEA Mountaineering Instructor Guide.

More than just earning a qualification, your guide training program will be complemented by significant amounts of ‘face time’ with clients and conscious development of leadership and instruction skills. Armed with this well-rounded résumé of skills and real life experience you will be well placed to find employment in this dynamic and rewarding industry.

Lastly, we will also host a series of short seminars dealing with the industry itself, on topics such as resume building, interviewing, and an overview of the international guiding community.

At the end of the school, you will have walked the long path from novice mountaineer to fully qualified guide, and will ready for a life in the mountains.

Course Progression

Module One, the Foundation:You will begin your training as a student, building your personal foundation of outdoor and mountaineering skills, as well as decision-making and judgment skills. This first phase allows you to start your guiding career with a solid understanding of the mountains, learning to thrive in a remote backcountry environment, on many different levels. You will learn the basics of mountaineering, rock, ice, and snow climbing, camping in a variety of environments, navigation, backcountry risk management, and judgment. You will also take your first steps to becoming a certified guide by obtaining a Wilderness Education Association (WEA) Outdoor Leader certification, a wilderness first aid certification, and completing a Leave No Trace Trainer course.

Module Two, Technical Skills: At this point, you will have a strong grasp of the basics of mountaineering, and will be ready to start developing deeper technical and instructional skills. This will happen in concert with your continued maturation as a mountaineer. Shifting away from the snow and ice of the Patagonian Ice Cap, you will spend a six week rotation on rock, practicing traditional, aid, and big wall rock climbing skills. You will learn about placing rock protection, making traditional rock anchors, route finding, leading in technical terrain, and will also learn basic aid climbing and big wall climbing skills needed for multi-day rock climbing expeditions.

Transitioning from rock, you will continue to develop your personal mountaineering and outdoor skills. With your fellow aspirant guides, you will plan and execute a six-week crossing of the southern Patagonian Ice cap, the third largest in the world. Working together, both students and guide instructors, you will select a route that allows a series of challenging climbing and glacier travel objectives, further consolidating your skills. This will be the first expedition where you will be responsible for all facets of the expedition, from planning and preparation, to carrying out the route. Along the way, you will have the opportunity to climb rock, snow, and ice to summit some of the most spectacular peaks in Patagonia.

Module Three, the True Mountaineer: After working with your instructors to complete the ice cap crossing, your personal development will continue as you will and execute an international, six-week climbing expedition, this time with minimal input from your instructors. Possible climbing destinations include Bolivia, Ecuador, New Zealand, Argentina, and North America. Where you go will depend on you and your group’s goals and desires, and will focus on further enhancing your outdoor resume.

During this phase of the course, you will also continue along the course to WEA guiding certification by participating in an instructor training certification course.

Module Four, the Apprentice Guide: The final semesters of your program will see you transition from a competent mountaineer to a solid guide. Initially you will work as an intern guide, and then as a full guide, in a series of progressively more challenging expeditions.

Traveling abroad, you will spend three to four months working as a paid intern at one of our affiliate companies running single and multi-day expeditions. This will allow you to experience the guiding industry from a trip leader and employee perspective. You will work with clients on a daily basis and, over the course of the summer, will gain more and more responsibility. Exceptional students may be trusted to take their own groups out on multi-day trips by the end of the summer, making the first transition to full guide.

Module Five, the Mountain Guide: Following your internship aborad, your training will continue in Patagonia by working as a co-guide on a 42 day mountaineering expedition, co-leading a group of six novice clients into the Patagonian backcountry. You will be responsible for helping to teach and train a group of students of varying levels of experience in an incredibly remote environment.

For your final step in the guide training program, you will work two expeditions as a full lead guide. From beginning to end, you will be responsible for taking a group across the Patagonian Ice Cap, up a remote peak, or rock climbing, training and helping the students to develop their outdoor skills. The final 42 day expedition will serve as your final evaluation for WEA Instructor Certification, and upon successful completion, you will have become a fully certified guide, coming full circle from student to competent instructor and outdoor leader.

Challenge Yourself.

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Up the Hill
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Thank Goodness We Have Snowshoes
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Avalanche Probe Line
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Coming Down
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More Fun than a Barrel of Monkeys
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