The North Face: Move Mountains

Historically, professional rock guiding has been a male-dominated field – and it’s time to change that. In 2019, The North Face and the American Mountain Guides Association (AMGA) announced the creation of the first Women’s Rock Guide Course – a professional rock guide training course specifically for female students and taught by women of the AMGA Instructor Team.

There are long-standing cultural stigmas that may have kept women from becoming guides – including false perceptions that the profession requires masculine qualities, potential discomfort with being the only woman in programs, and few female mentors and role models to look up to. Given that 46% of outdoor participants are women (according to the OIA’s 2018 Outdoor Participation Report), the gap between guides and participants is staggering. The time to course-correct is now and climbing would benefit from more women role models, mentors, and leaders.

“We are grateful to have The North Face’s support to offer our first ever AMGA All-Women’s Rock Guide Course. Trained female guides are in short supply and high demand and we see this opportunity as a catalyst to get more women involved in our programs,” said Angela Hawse, AMGA President and IFMGA Mountain Guide. “This first course is a great jump start as we aspire to have 30% of our programs comprised of women. Everyone benefits with more women onboard; men benefit from subtle opportunities to learn how to better serve women guests and studies show that teams make better decisions and are more successful when women represent at least a 1/3 of the team. We like stacking those odds in our favor and are very excited to offer this AMGA Women’s Rock Guide Course next autumn.”