The high mountain guide must continually assess the environment in which the group finds itself, always giving priority to safety, taking into account each person’s endurance and experience.

Depending on the season, the high mountain guide’s work evolves at the same pace as the landscape changes, with snow-covered slopes giving way to whitewater or trekking.

Awarded by the SMS School, the State Diploma in Mountaineering – High Mountain Guide is essential in order to practise this profession. Admission to this institution requires having completed the PSC1 training – Level 1 Civic Prevention and First Aid.

The training leads to the profession of high mountain guide. A guide may be hired by a rope-access work company (as a rope technician), by a holiday organisation or by a local authority, or may work on a self-employed basis.

Guides often pursue a second professional activity alongside this one.

A high mountain guide may become a trainer or instructor at SMS or at any other institution preparing students for mountain professions.

Once well known, a high mountain guide may, alongside their activity, publish travel journals, technical or photography books, and produce feature articles, documentaries, and so on.