2017. Year in Review, Professionally

Peru

It's time for the annual review of my guiding agenda. First, a look back to previous years. Each year links to its full report:

• I've been guiding since 2005, but only in 2012 did I start collecting info this way
• 2012 (132 guiding days) 
• 2013 (94 guiding days)
• 2014 (79 guiding days)
• 2015 (86 guiding days)
• 2016 (111 guiding days)

The highlight of 2017 was three work trips to South America. Argentina in January, Peru in May, and Chile in October. In total I spent 71 days out of the country for work. The "days" counts herein refer only to field time. Much of an international guiding trip is not field time.

Of 140 guiding days, I spent:

• Notably, zero on ice
• 55 alpine climbing
• 27 rock climbing
• Skiing has steadily increased over the years. 
• 2012- About 12 days ski guiding
• 2013- About 25
• 2014- About 15
• 2015- 22
• 2016- 42
• 2017- 58

Another notable development, but one that I sadly have no past stats on, for 2017, was the amount I worked with other guides. I'm pretty sure I worked with others almost twice as often in 2017 as I have in recent years. I worked 17 of the 86 trips with at least one other guide.

Tetons

More of what it looked like, by the numbers:

• I worked 86 guiding trips 
• Of those, 57 were single-day outings. 
• 17 were two day commitments. 
• 7 were for 3 days 
• 2 trips went for four days 
• 1 trip was 5 days and one trip was 6 days 
• I did a 9 day trip to ski in Peru with an amazing group in May.  
• Of all those trips, I camped in the backcountry for work about 31 nights. I also slept away from home, but in hotels and huts, a great deal. 
• For instance, I spent 11 nights at the Exum hut at Grand Teton National Park's Lower Saddle. 
• I did a total of 14 trips to the Grand Teton. We summitted 11 of those. 
• That adds up to 140 guiding days. 
• Of course, for every 2-3 guiding days, there is an average of one day of administrative work that includes packing, unpacking, food prep, etc. 
• I did 10 trips with folks that came directly to me. These fine guests were not the customers of another guide service nor had I climbed with them prior. They somehow found me, usually through word of mouth. 
• 41 trips were with returning clients. 
• A total, then, of 68 days (just under half the total) were with clients that came directly or returned to me. 
• Many folks come to me for a specific route or peak. In 2017 43 trips were initiated with a specific peak or route in mind. Of those 43 we made the summit as planned on 27. That 63% "success ratio" is almost exactly average. (The 6 year average is 62% summits)