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For booking please e-mail info@cmhinc.com or call 1-800-661-0252. Canadian Mountain Holidays Phone: (403) 762-7100 
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For booking please e-mail info@cmhinc.com or call 1-800-661-0252. Canadian Mountain Holidays Phone: (403) 762-7100
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  Our guides aren't hotshots making money to finance their next heroic climb. They are mature men and women who cherish the mountains and find professional satisfaction in introducing them to beginners and experts alike. They are students and interpreters of the High Country's flora, fauna, geology, and magic. Mountain guiding as an honoured vocation has deep roots in the ranges of western Canada. In 1897 the Canadian Pacific Railroad, eager to encourage tourism along its spectacular right-of-way, hired a couple of Swiss guides and brought them to Glacier House, west of Banff. More soon came, and the tradition of professional mountain guiding took firm hold. Most of our country's great peaks were first climbed by groups guided by stalwarts like Edward Feuz Jr., who made 78 first ascents in his 41-year career, and the legendary Conrad Kain, who led the first ascent of Mount Robson in 1913, one of his more than 50 firsts. Our CMH guides are proud inheritors and upkeepers of that tradition, a rare one in today's world. It's a tradition that stresses "respect and awe" for the mountains and the "humble moderation and understanding" our founder Hans Gmoser has always valued. It's a tradition that Hans' fellow Austrian Conrad Kain followed in his long career, to "be courteous to all, and always give special attention to the weakest member of the party." A third of our guides are fully certified by the International Federation of Mountain Guide Associations (IFMGA), a process that generally takes ten years, and the rest meet the rigorous standards of the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG). Their average age is 35. They are as happy and as at home leading a group of first-time hikers along a meadowy trail as they are on a demanding rock climb. And all of them would agree with Thierry Cardon, a native of France's Mont Blanc region who came to CMH at Hans' urging in the early 1970s. After almost 30 years of guiding Heli-Hikers and Heli-Skiers, Thierry still treasures "the twinkle in my guests' eyes after they complete a day of hiking in an environment they just discovered, a part of the natural world they might have otherwise thought existed only in fiction, legend, or imagination, or which they may think has altogether vanished under the pressure of progress and the modern world." LINKS BC Helicopter and Snowcat Skiing Operators Association ACMG IFMGA |