>From: Bhansen97_at_aol.com >Phillip - You write, RE: unsafe guided tours: > ><< ....the sort of clients who can afford > guided tours (which ain't cheap) often come from the movers and shakers >of > society, and are accustomed to being able to overcome many obstacles by > issuing orders. I wonder if the bucks the clients are forking over, >combined > with the used-to-getting-their-way sorta folks.... >> > >Whoa man! Pretty heavy stuff there. I'm sorry you've been exposed to such a >narrow segment of society. Some folks would say that shoot-from-the-hip >categorizations like that are a good deal more elitist than are the folks >who >go on guilded kayak tours. - Bill Hansen Hi Bill, I said "often" not "always", but you're right, it was a pretty sweeping generalisation. The point I was trying to make, perhaps a bit clumsily, was that the dynamic between guides and clients can be more like an employee-employer relationship than the dynamic between trip leaders and learners on club trips or of an experienced kayaker taking a friend on a tour. Re "elitist": some (perhaps most) clients on extended kayak tours are in situations that are beyond their own personal skills in weather reading, route-finding, making judgement calls, campcraft, and so on; I don't think it's elitist to note that some folks are self-sufficient in these areas, and others are dependent on guides. If nobody was any better than anyone else at kayaking, the profession of sea-kayak guiding wouldn't exist. Arguably, it's very prudent of kayak tour clients to recognise their own limitations in these particular areas, and to pay for professional guidance. However, this can create the situation I first remarked on, where the guides have conflicting priorities: their clients are depending on them to keep them out of harm's way, yet at the same time the clients may be exerting pressure (subtly or otherwise) to complete the entire advertised circuit, to "deliver" the suggested whale sightings, and to get them back on time, regardless of weather. Balancing all these requirements is part of being a truely professsional guide, I guess. And yes, I have heard horror stories about unreasonable clients from guides (of course, human nature being what it is, we all love to talk more about the outrageous behaviour of a few than the decency of the vast majority). >Ooooh - Should all of us who take guided tours be hanging our heads now? Not at all. I'm guessing you use guided tours the way I would if I ever took one (which I well might if I was paddling in, say, tropical waters, an environment I am unfamiliar with): I imagine that far from being a passive passenger, you treat guided trips as an opportunity to learn all you can from experts with local knowledge, perhaps with an eye to applying that learning to your own trips later on. The fact that you're on Paddlewise shows that you have an ongoing passion for kayaking. This will not be true of all tour company clients; some will be kayaking this month, off trekking with another package tour next month, hot-air balloning the month after that and so on. And these "casual" clients are the ones who are most dependent on their guides. To say that is a factual observation; it is not a moral judgement, anymore than I would feel "judged" if someone observed that I needed a guide on a caving trip - I freely acknowledge I don't' have the skill set needed, but that hardly makes me a bad person. Philip Torrens N49°16' W123°06' *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Philip Torrens wrote: > The point I was trying to make, perhaps a bit clumsily, was > that the dynamic between guides and clients can be more like an > employee-employer relationship than the dynamic between trip leaders and > learners on club trips or of an experienced kayaker taking a friend on a > tour. I had a very brief tenure in the late '70's as a mountain guide (three summers), working for guy who ran people around and up/down Mount Adams, a heavily glaciated stratovolcano in Washington. A story to illustrate why I would never consider guiding anybody anywhere again: Guy in his late 30's to early 40's, out of shape, clearly did not train for the eight-day session like our literature said he needed to. He goes anyway, and we baby him from rock to rock on glacial moraines, noting that he is frequently out of breath. On the seventh day, on the way to high camp, he has to flop on the glacier many times, and begins to exhibit low-level Cheyne-Stokes breathing (we think). At high camp he can not get his breathing rate down. Chuck (the leader) and I (number two) decide "no way this guy is going to the summit tomorrow." We tell him that, and he seems to accept it with aplomb, while breathing heavily at 8300 feet (summit is 12700). Group summits, returns to basecamp for the obligatory barbecue/beer bash. Guy gets kinda looped (not breathing heavily anymore) and lays into Chuck and me (and the director of the climbing school), saying, "I was cheated and mislead -- I had as much right to go to the summit as anybody ..." Much bad vibes. This guy is an EMT, so he goes back to NY and reads up on pulmonary edema, etc., and sends us a letter a month later apologizing and thanking us for (maybe) saving his life by keeping him from going up the mountain. I was going to lay another story on the throng, but it began to trigger an avalanche of anecdotes like the one above and I decided I did not want to think about that stuff any more. Nothing but respect for folks who can guide successfully. You got it, Philip: "... the dynamic ... [is] like an employee-employer relationship ..." except that sometimes the "employer" does not know squat about how the "employee" should do his job. For the record, I was a client on a guided sea kayak trip out of Loreto, Baja CA, in 1986, and it was **heaven** to have someone else do all the worrying! I'd be a client again in a flash if I had the bucks. (Don't, unfortunately, 'cause I'm having a house built -- occupiable in 6 weeks!) -- Dave Kruger Astoria, OR *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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