Mountain Clients

For example, in the January 2002 issue of High Mountain Sport (the official magazine of the British Mountaineering Council) Andy Kilpatrick has written: “Joining the ropes? Forget all that old twaddle about joining your ropes with reef knot and double fishermans – just go for the simple overhand knot”.

If a mountain guide or climbing instructor invites you to abseil from ropes that are tied together with just a simple overhand knot, you can be sure that he/she does not know what they are doing. Ask for your money back. In my view, too many clients of the Association of British Mountain Guides have been killed through basic errors made by these ‘qualified professionals’.

In the November 2000 issue of High Mountain Sport, an article by Joe Simpson was printed in which he castigates press journalists for ‘woefully inaccurate journalism’.

The butt of most of his criticism was the Daily Telegraph, which in a news story made a number of mistakes regarding 3 climbers who fell from the North Wall of the Eiger on the same day in September 2000 during a storm.

The article is aimed solely at press journalists and it makes no distinction between on-the-day news stories and informed investigative reporting about climbing accidents or tragedies.

Unfortunately, there are not many reports on why certain accidents happen, especially when it comes to those involving professional mountain guides and members of the Association of British Mountain Guides (BMG). Apparently, members of the BMG are in a unique position. Despite numerous fatal accidents to their clients, there is seldom any comeback on them when clients are seriously injured or killed. I cannot think of any other profession in the world where a client can be ‘lost’ and the member of that profession does not have to face a judicial inquiry.

In those circumstances, climbing journalists should be encouraged to report all possible details about these incidents so that you, the consumer of guide services, can see (or at least form a view as to) whether the professional climbers have avoided or ignored their responsibilities.

On the contrary, there have been a number of articles by climbing journalists castigating clients for seeking compensation.

It is my view that any incident that affects climbers, mountain clients or otherwise, should receive accurate and informed coverage in specialist magazines. If they do not, good quality information about these incidents is denied to the climbing public whose picture of the guiding profession becomes distorted.