Association of Mountain Clients
This website is dedicated to the collation of information about safety & related issues for mountain clients, & in particular clients who retained the services of "official" or "authorised" mountain guides, companies or organisations. The site also offers comment on the information gathered
All of the information on the site has been gathered from public domain sources, with the exception of certain conversations or communications between particular individuals & the author of the site. I am the author of the site. My name is Dennis Morrod. I am the founder of the Association of Mountain Clients. Like Mall Duff, one of Scotlands finest mountaineers and independent mountain guide, I have had no interest whatsoever in joining the so-called official mountain guides in my case, due to their attitute and safety record.
http://www.mountainclients.org.uk (Can't Climb? Bolt!)
http://www.pistehors.com/comments/375_0_1_0_C/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/22/newsid_2549000/2549021.stm
The starting point for much of the material on this website is the erronous view (at least in my mind and experience) that mountain clients expose themselves and their families to additional and unecessary risk, a dangerous service, if they choose to engage the services of an independent mountain guide or instructor who is not a member of the BMG (or its predecessor the ABMG), the UIAGM, the IFMGA, the AMI or any similar body.
A letter published in Climber & Rambler in 1988 goes a long way in confirming the above erroneous view:
"The Association of British Mountain Guides has asked me to write to warn your readers about people posing as mountain guides", so wrote Mr S. Mitchell on behalf of the Association of British Mountain Guides (ABMG). Note - ABMG has since changed to the BMG.
He continued: "We are therefore very concerned, that any member of the public is subjected to an inferior and probably dangerous service by someone who may call himself a mountain guide. To operate with an unqualified guide...may easily result in the loss of hard-earned holiday money."
Whilst to my knowlege, not a single mountain client of an independent guide (someone supposedly posing as a mountain guide) working alone**, has actually lost their hard-earned holiday money, a number of BMG mountain clients, certainly since 1988 when my records started, have lost not only hard earned, holiday money, but also a hard-earned life! It is my view that the true number of mountain clients who have in fact lost their lives may never be known due to what I can only describe as, a wall of silence; a closing of BMG and BMC ranks. Very little is known about the number of clients killed and seriously injured whilst with Continental guides. Some of the 'links' within this site, give some idea as to the scale of European accidents. **Independent guides working for BMG guides in Europe have lost three clients (1992).
It appears to me that a 'Bogus Mountain Guide' is anyone who is not a member of or who does not support the BMG/BMC in their respective thinking and attitude to client safety.
As the evidence set out will demonstrate, the safety record of guides or instructors who are members of those bodies is far from exemplary.
'As a client you surrender your responsibility (Reinhold Messner). The higher; the more difficult the mountain, the more responsibility you hand over to the guide, notwithstanding the fact that being answerable for yourself should be the basic prerequisite of any mountain experience. Thus, you put yourself at the mercy of the tour provider. The guide and the tour provider are in it for the business, ie the prestige of a successful ascent.' But what happens when the leader gets into difficulty?' Who looks after the client on a climb or a mountain that he does not know? Who looks after the client who's guide has received head injuries because of a determination not to wear a safety helmet (still a common site in the French Alps in 2008)? A number of clients have fallen into the trap of assuming that all these issues are resolved (BMG advertising) simply by engaging the services of a professional guide and I believe too many have become victims.
I wonder some times just how closely mountain centres and outdoor pursuit centres (all of whom are supposedly run to strict safety criteria laid down by the sport's representative but would be governing body - the British Mountaineering Council) guard themselves against the arrogance and impercipience of institutionalism. I wonder just how often they have closed ranks to prevent the adaquate examination of themselves and accidents to clients of qualified guides/instructors. Is the situation an honest or satisfactory one? Does their reliance on syllabus lead to a perilous and misplaced confidence in the presence of danger?
My mountaineering hero is Walter Bonatti. In 1962 Bonatti wrote: "..mountaineering is a shining light on the scale of human values".
At the time I agreed with Bonatti totally. And yet, just three years later in 1965, he stopped serious climbing, mountaineering and guiding. The finest climber, mountaineer and mountain guide who ever lived gave up his passion and his career forever. Why? He was just 35 years of age.
Bonatti stopped climbing because his sport had becoming callous and shabby. In fact it now transpires that he was treated abominably by the Italian climbing establishment after his pivitol role in the first ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition, the summit climbers of which, accussed Bonatti of 'stealing some of their oxygen' during there final summit push. This was proven to be totally untrue years later and finally (after Bonattis' successful court-case against them) and a recent Book about the expedition by one of the summitteer - Laceddelli. But the damage had been done and mountaineering lost for ever, its finest exponent - Walter Bonatti.
For some reason, Sir C. Bonington apparently, felt the need to write the following of Bonatti in 1981, on page 242 in the book: 'Quest for Adventure: "He still climbs with a small group of close friends...in many ways he is a sad and lonely man. The problem with 'chasing the extreme' in risk and physical adventure is that the solace it gives is ephemeral". The man who soloed nothing of note, who only climbed with - the best, felt that he could write thus, about mountaineerings finest. Bonatti, who had suffered the slings and arrows of a climbing establishment for most of his climbing career has to receive some more...
No doubt Bonatti was and is "very sad". In my view he was and still is inconsolable at the demise of human values in climbing; mountaineering.
Just a passing thought: If you can't climb? Bolt!
**We know of three clients killed in a single accident (Eiger West Flank in 1992) whilst with two independent guides; working for and under the guidance of, a BMG/UIAGM/IFMGA guide who ran the ironically named - Survival Club. For them; for the two independnt guides, there were no repercussions. On the 5th of October, 2005, Michael Kudas the editor of: 'High Crimes - The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed', and 'The Height of Avarice', wrote to mountainclients: "I have followed your writing about safety for mountaineering clients for some time and have adired your website devoted to these issues...I'm sure you could shed a lot of light on what has happened in the last decade in the mountain guiding business."
I was told that I would have to come up to their standard (BMG, UIAGM, IFMGA) that to me, is a contradiction in terms.
