Splitboard guide. A UIAGM overview.
Winter is coming, etc etc, and it’s almost time to decide on your next trip and splitboard guide, if you haven’t already. Wherever you end up going we obviously hope you have an awesome time and stay safe, but that safety will be ultimately be the down to the guide, the one you have chosen to lead you, should you choose to take one with you.
What’s better than a pro UIAGM splitboard guide?
There is, we believe, a definitive answer to this but before we tell you what we think that is let’s remind ourselves what a UIAGM qualified mountain / splitboard guide actually is.
Not all splitboard guides are equal. Here’s a quick guide to your guides guiding qualification..
A UIAGM guide is a professional mountain guide who is certified by the Union Internationale des Associations de Guides de Montagnes (UIAGM) — also known as the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA) in English and IVBV in German.
UIAGM is the gold standard.
This is the highest international standard for mountain guiding. A UIAGM guide is fully qualified, internationally recognised, and trusted to lead climbers, skiers and splitboarders on any type of terrain; rock, ice, snow, and glacier – worldwide.
The training for the UIAGM qualification is a very rigorous one, it typically takes between 4–6 years to complete and the training covers all disciplines, including:
- Rock climbing (single + multi-pitch)
- Ice climbing
- Alpine climbing (glaciers, mixed terrain, high altitude)
- Ski mountaineering and off-piste guiding
- Safety, avalanche science, rescue techniques, client care
What does this actually mean, to you?
It means that you are in the safest hands possible with a UIAGM qualified guide. There are many splitboard guides out there who are quite good at what they do but if they are operating in the bigger mountains without this qualification then you might want to think twice. It’s hard to not sound like we’re not throwing shade here but the fact is that any mountain guide you use without a UIAGM qualification is not going to be as well trained or as skilled as the one that has it.
So ‘you pays your money and you takes your chance’ but, should things go bad on the mountain and you ended up being buried under a metre of snow then, 100%, we know what level of guide we’d rather have looking for us.
It costs more money to take a UIAGM along, it’s true, but not only do you get a guide with an internationally recognised qualification in charge of your safety you’ll also get to splitboard (especially in certain parts of Europe) in zones that other guides either can’t legally take you to or just don’t even know about.
Q: So just what is better than a pro UIAGM splitboard guide then?
A: That will be two UIAGM pro splitboard guides, of course..
On our recent Split and Sail trip our client crew was joined by a second UIAGM splitboard guide and his client. This UIAGM was Laurent (Bib) Bibollet who is also a very good friend (and a colleague from the same Compagnie des Guides, Saint Gervais / Les Contamines of our head UIAGM guide Paul (Polo) Verdier. So it wasn’t a total coincidence..
With 2 UIAGM splitboard guides now in the mix the client /guide ratio dropped to 3:1 meaning that there was scope to now look at terrain choices that would have been unwise for just 1 UIAGM guide and a group of 6 clients to consider.
The 2 guide strategy totally changed the way we could operate in such a remote place. The whole client experience was elevated and the results were outstanding so we are now committed to having both Polo and Laurent working together again on selected Rider Social sessions running next season, and beyond.
Laurent will, along with Polo, be next joining us again for our Splitboard Kyrgyzstan sessions running in March 2026 and for our next Split and Sail weeks in Greenland during May 2027.
Here are a few images from our recent Greenland trip showing how a 2 guide strategy can really work.
- The first image shows a line in Greenland to the lookers right of the serac. This was a tricky place to access safely and you really wouldn’t have wanted 6 making the ascent at the same time. The 3:1 ratio gives each guide the ability to concentrate on their team, moving safely.
- The second image of Gavin abseiling shows how with 2 guides we were able to safely fashion an exit from an interesting spot. Yes, it’s possible to do it with 1 guide and 6 clients but you would ultimately sacrifice elements of safety in doing so.
- The third image is of the crew under the release that had stopped on the beach. The crown wall from this slide in Greenland was a big one, it was also a good 3 kilometres across. In avalanche terrain of this size you need to be doubly safe.
- Lastly here’s Polo and Bib pretending to play chess on the boat : )
“I can’t make any of your scheduled trips but would like to hire a UIAGM splitboard guide for a couple of days, can I?”
Yes you can, just drop us a message with what you need and when and we’ll do our best to get you sorted out with either Polo or Bib.
