We love to climb and ski in the mountains. It challenges us and creates fantastic memories, and it also carries a measure of risk. Most things do, but it’s simple fact that climbing and skiing usually incur more than the rest of our daily lives.
So first we must realize that if something is truly risky, it means even if we do everything correctly, something bad can happen. Or put another way, not everything that could go wrong is in our control. Some people call this “objective hazard,” or even more dramatically, an “act of God.”
Some risks, however, we can control or at least mitigate through our actions. As climbers and skiers we should learn, nurture, and develop these tools. Technical systems like belaying, anchor building, and short-roping all help to manage risk. Learning these strategies and systems proves the easy part. Far trickier can be having a realistic perspective on our competencies with those systems. Are we as good as we think we are? Do we sometimes look for a technical solution to a problem we could solve more simply?
We encourage you to devote the time and energy to amass wisdom and sound judgment in the mountains—there are no magic shortcuts. What can help, though, is feedback from those with experience, people who’ve made the mistakes, learned from them, and progressed.
What we present here loosely follows the organization of coursework in the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) training program. Just as guide candidates begin their studies with fundamentals like gear, anchors, belaying, and rope systems, in this book we introduce an overall system, beginning with those topics and progressing into more complicated subjects like bigger terrain, glaciated peaks, waterfall ice, and even self-rescue.
We often hear or are asked, “What’s the AMGA way?” We definitively state: There is no “AMGA way.” Certified guides teach and practice a range of technical systems and decision-making systems. We strive to implement “the right technique at the right time,” and within that there is a wide array of skills that are appropriate and vetted.
In short, we present a modern system that will occasionally seem familiar, many times completely new, and hopefully eye-opening in other instances. It may feel like two (or three!) steps back when learning some of the unfamiliar techniques, but in general we trend toward faster and safer through simplicity rather than “rope trickery.” As with any new skill, learn in a low-pressure situation and accept that things may feel complicated or clumsy at first. Trust, though, that with time you’ll master the new skills and in doing so, your horizons will broaden.
So, onward . . . deeper and higher into the mountains. Thanks for taking the journey with us.