Cat Skiing and Gratuities (er,that's tips to you and me...)

A snowHead

fatbob, go for the lowball and any more is a bonus Twisted Evil

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Very Interesting - The Times OnLine

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/leisure/article5076519.ece

Quote
There are two types of service charges: compulsory or discretionary. It is discretionary if the service charge is not mentioned on the menu but appears on the bill.

By law the customer must be informed about a compulsory service charge with a notice outside the premises, before getting to the table. If the customer receives bad service, he or she can refuse to pay the compulsory charge but it is advised to explain the reason and to leave one’s name and address with the restaurant so as not to be accused of “doing a runner”.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

I think what you guys are missing is a big cultural difference here.
Generally people in public serives industry's in North America get paid very low wages.
Bar staff might only get a few $ per hour - but expect to make at least the same again in tips from customers.

Ever been in an North American bar and not tipped the bar staff ?
If you havent then good luck get served for the second round....
Rightly or wrongly that is the way it is North America - where the tip is considered part of the price you pay.
The staff in service industrys consider tips a necessary supplement due to their very low base wage.

Additionally a cat ski guide in Canada potentially isnt UIAGM (its different rules in north america).
So I doubt they will be making mega bucks like a ski guide in Chamonix might.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Haggis_Trap, but what about tipping a company for which you have paid for a very expensive multi day cat skiing trip at 15% of the price you paid for the trip ?

You'll need to Register first of course.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

fatbob, that sounds fair Very Happy

After all it is free

this is a very tedious thread

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Hey Guys I am a snowcat skiing guide and also a owner of an operation. We do not expect tips from our guests and are careful to not hold out our hands for this. However the culture in North america and for north americans is one of tipping. The rationale is that if you are tipping someone serving your food - why not someone who is keeping you safe in the mountains.

It normally works out that people from the UK and Australia, and New Zealand do not tip much or often. The guides know that there is almost no chance of a tip from these people (it does not change the way that I guide or the other guides that i know). But please come skiing with us we love to have you guys out on the mountains. Often these people will express thier gratitude in many other ways - for instance I have had many great invitations to to come and stay and visit with guests who become freinds. We get lots of invitations to dinners and beer after skiing (although most are surprised that I do not drink alchohol at all). However the biggest reward for a guide is to see that his/her guest are totally into the experience - and are having one of the best days of their lives in the mountains and in the powder - this is the real reward for most guides.

Skiers and riders from North america are the biggest tippers. The average is about C$20-50 per person. When tips are recieved this is appreciated but not expected. Our cat sliing prices are from C$299-C$399 per day - so not super expensive - so the tip amount is from 5-15%

All tips received by any member of our team are shared to all the team (all the guides and drivers). This is the best way as it promotes a team approach. As the owner of the operation I give away my share of the tips to the 2 most junioer members of the team - beacuse the get paid the worst. Most cat skiing operations would handle tips in this way. At the end of each day we ask each of our guests to fill out a customer feeback form - at the bottom of this we have a line (in fine print) that says - "If you have had exceptional service and would like to leave a tip please be aware that the team share all tips received amongst the entire team equally" This is the way that we communicate this.

In Canada - The pay rates for guides are about C$100-150 per day for tail guides, C$200-250 for guides that lead cats, and C$300-C$350 for supervising guides. For the amount of training that that the guides need to do the pay rates are not high. But at the same time it is a great job so no one complians.

Personally if was going cat skiing - I would only tip if I had an exceptional experiece and the guides went out of their way for me. Fortunately you will see that this sort of exceptional service happens often in the cat skiing sector in Canada. Guides will spend enormus amounts of time and effort trying to make sure that their guests have the best experience.

However lets face it - cat skiing is expensive for most people at GBP150 per day it is a financial stretch for people to do it. We would much prefer for people to hold onto any tips if it meant that they would be more likely to come again and ski with again - because at least then the guides are able to be employed to do a job that most of them love....

Kieren

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

kierengaul, really great post, and good to get an insider's view. I hope that one day I'll be able to afford to come and ski with you guys!

snow reports

Good to hear your views kierengaul, and a great attitude. Good on you snowHead

kierengaul, wot beanie1 and cathy said.

You know it makes sense.

kierengaul, thanks for that, very clear and helpful

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

kierengaul, Thanks, nice and clear. snowHead

A snowHead

Thanks for that kierengaul. Those pay rates of the guides are quite low - though the supervising guide earns a comparable amount to an UIAGM guide : around €350 or £300 per day for a guide, which (if you have the optimum 6 guests = about £50 per day each which you quote as a possible tip in America). Hardly UIAGM "mega bucks" Haggis_Trap!
The reason more British guests don't do cat skiing (well, my reason anyway) is that the guide would be the only fee in Europe and the mountains and lifts are so configured in the Alps that, with a guide, you can do a huge amount of skiing well away from the lifts making fresh tracks even well after any snow fall without having to do much or any walking. Cat skiing from what I hear, you would only get a small amount of vertical by comparison. I can see the attraction of Cat skiing to people in North America since, as I discovered in Jackson Hole last year, this Alpine situation is (often?) not the case in North America. We found the inbounds were all like skiing pistes - though you wouldn't find similar good steeps in Europe except off piste (there was no new snow while we were there though it snowed a bit the day before we arrived), and the out of bounds, though they had good powder, all required a lot of walking/skinning so you could only get a very small amount of vertical in a day. By the way, even the guides were not allowed to take us there (except a bit of the side country which quickly got skied out) because of agreements with the National Park. Consequently we went on our own with a map which was not very satisfactory - though there were almost no tracks which was nice - and none at all as soon as we skinned a bit. I rather doubt I will go there again. Of course there are places in the Alps where the off-piste gets skied out fairly quickly and for that reason I tend to avoid them now - though here we are talking days, not hours.
If I wanted to get something like the Alpine situation in North America, kierengaul, can you suggest where might suit someone like me who skis almost entirely off-piste and enjoys steeps but doesn't like to do a large amount of skinning?

A snowHead

snowball, buy a helicopter wink

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

kierengaul, thanks for that.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

snowball, thanks for that. Had been thinking of maybe one day going to JH. Shan't now. Will stick to France, Austria and Switzerland. Well, maybe I'll give Italy a go as well.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

rayscoops, OK please add "at relatively moderate expense".
I did one week of Heli based in Stewart, Canada, but it was a once in a lifetime thing - I can't afford to do it again. Unfortunately my experience, though good, was not that great - we had breakable crust everywhere above the tree-line. Certainly it wasn't worth the price compared to the same money spent on skiing with guides, though if money were no object I would do it again like a shot (probably in Alaska) - suppressing my guilt at my carbon footprint.

You'll need to Register first of course.

achilles, If I'd had lots of new powder perhaps I would have felt differently about JC .And if you want steep, marked runs it is hard to beat anywhere.
Yes, you should certainly try Italy - especially off piste since Italians don't ski off piste much.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

abc, 1261m tram top to bottom. And an average run - RV bowl to the hobacks then lift to get out - would be near all of that. If you take the first bowl out of the gates you come back in fairly quickly, but it is only about a 5-10 minute hike to do a bit more. But the real people ski the pass I believe.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Unfortunately my friend John has the maps we used and is the one who had been there before and I have forgotten most of the names of the out of bounds areas so it is hard to be specific about this. Is there a map or something on the web I could refer to?
On our first day we skied in-bounds and the steeps were impressive (the "Expert Chutes" and "Alta Chutes" etc. However, although John knew the place well, there was almost nowhere that wasn't like a piste (let alone anywhere we could make fresh-tracks) though the snow quality was nice at that point. Next morning we went off into the side country and the first couple of bowls were all hard crust or breakable crust with lots of rocks showing through - but beyond that , after a bit of a walk up, we found one good slope (the name was something like 3 Pines) where there was good powder not much skied. In the afternoon we went out of the first gate after the tram and skied down into Granite. There wasn't a single track and it was great. We only had about 4 tracks join our path after most of a mile of the path out. It is a very long walk out around the corner back to the resort and we never actually did it more than once in a day though you could. Lots of elk in the distance in the main valley but we didn't see any where we were skiing. Later we did several steeper ways into Granite (Mile long chute I think one was called (?)).
On our fourth day we skied with a friend from the Epic website who lived in JC and was a ski teacher and one time "guide" there (not UIAGM equivalent). We did side country with him (as a friend - he couldn't "guide" us there) but everything was skied out by then.
On our fifth day we went out of the second gate beyond the tram and down to the valley (as for Granite), then skinned up a small ridge and skied down through woods to another valley. we then did a very long skin up to the left arriving from the back to "Patricks Gully" at the far end of the side country. The final part of the ascent we left the powder behind and were finding it very difficult to keep a grip on the icy slope since none of us had brought hascheisen. Patricks gully had been pointed out by our friend the previous day - he had named it having not found previous record of someone else skiing it (he skied it on St Patricks day). By then the we were near sunset and the entry of what we thought was the gully seemed very icy (the whole mountainside was hard, icy crust). Given the amount of rocks and the possible fatal nature of a fall we decided to play safe and did a detour behind the peak to our left to another bowl into the side country (with a rather exposed traverse into it). I forget the name. We finally skied back into the village in total darkness (two of us had head torches) at 6.30pm. Rather an adventure.
The last 4 days we had booked the "Steep and Deep camp" but this was a disappointment. We skied all inbounds and the same things that we had skied on our first day. On one morning we were given a guide who took us to the side country - but only to the first bowl which was just a piste by then. On the last day we were supposed to be with "Steep and Deep" we gave up on it and skied into Granite via a steeper route again (again no tracks, except near the start, till we got to the river) plus more side country at both ends (mostly crust or skied out in the main side country to the right (looking down) or very heavy and tracked in the small area in trees to the left).
However, other than granite with its long walk-out, the back country seemed to be touring country with more walking than skiing as far as I could see. Perhaps there would be other possibilities with cars or taxis? (we didn't hire a car since we simply flew in and flew out).
The "Steep and Deep" camp I certainly wouldn't repeat (our Jackson Hole friend said it wasn't really meant for people like us - though I'm sure it would have seemed better with some snow we could make new tracks in, and if John hadn't already shown us almost all of the inbounds steeper routes). When almost everything inbounds is marked on the resort map there seems no point in being guided around by someone else unless you want instruction. Quite different from the situation in Europe.
The story about the guides not being allowed to ski the back country (Granite and beyond) came from John who had talked to guides on previous
visits - and it was confirmed by a couple of people we skied with. If it is wrong I would like to know. Perhaps there are some types of guide who can and others who cannot?

Perhaps I should re-post this as a separate thread since most people have probably given up on this one.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snowball, seems like you've explored the side country next to the resort but were unlucky with snow. That's actually somewhat similar with my visit: it not only didn't snow when I was there, it was re-frozen surfaces for the most part. On the other hand, the 1 side country we did was quite nice and powdery.

The "pass" was usually accessed by car. My group didn't do it. (we're not tourers) That seems to be the area for the touring gang.

snow reports

snowball,

snowball. yes the pay rates for the Junior guides are quite low. But it is important to understand that these guys are working at the back of the group - as well as guest care their job is to dig people out if any of the group has been buried by an avalanche. This has been an incredibly successful in canadian cat skiing with about 1.3 million skier days there has only ever been 1 avalanche fatality in Canada (and even this one may not have happened if the trainciever had not failed).

I suspect that you are right about the vertical of skiing off Piste in Europe. i have skied in Most of the big areas and regions in the Alps. However the differences are that in Europe most of the Good skiing is in the Alpine area - where there are no trees - in this enviroment it is easy to rack up Big Vertical. However In Catskiing in Canada we mainly ski in the sub -apline glades. The adavantage of this type of skiing is the snow quality There is no or little wind effect of sun effect on snow - so the snow quality is excellent. However skiing in trees and glades is alot more work and Challenge than skiing in the alpine - the difference is like the alpine is like a huge Autobahn where you can just speed along - The sub alpine Glade is like a cool rally car track - It takes a bit more to get used to - but once you get it it becomes an endless playground in Great quality snow. With our expert groups we normally do about 20,000 vertical ft of skiing - this is about 12 runs. I will guarantee that anyone will be tired and satified after a day doing this in the cat skiing sector. If you want the big alpine experience in North america - you have to go heli-skiing. But if you want to find quality snow and really fun interesting skiing then cat skiing is the way to go.

In North america - where would you go for lots of off piste if you no not like a Large amount of skiing?
Whistler - Just off the 2 main mountains there are lots of great runs - get the John Baldwin Backcountry map - it has got all the runs listed - you can also get 1 lift Heli drops that will give you about 2-3 great runs back to the resort with limited skiing.
Red Mountain - small - But lots of great runs in the back country from only 10-25 minutes of skiing.

Kootany pass (salmo Creston pass) this is one of the highest passes in Canada - about 1715m - Lots of great runs right from the highway.
Rogers pass - Unfortunately long skinning in - but spectacular.
The Wapta icefields - Lots of skiing - but this is canada's High route lots of great hut to hut traverses and good skiing (almost all in the alpine) - But best in the spring - to cold for me the rest of the year.

But for me value for money - you can't go past cat skiing or heli- skiing in Canada. Here is the best way to get a deal Heli skiing - Go and camp out at one of the cheaper hotels in Blue river - wait for a standby to go heli skiing with Mike weigle. It will probably only cost 1/3 or 1/2 of the normal price - and you will be able to see what the weather is like on the day before you go.

For cat skiing head to rossland (red Mountain) and Pick up a standby day with 1 of the 4 operations that are easily accessable - you will get a day for about 60% of the normal price if there are seats available.

Good Luck...
Kieren

ive booked cat skiing next year at monarch mountain
hopefully it should be good and only $250 each

You know it makes sense.

kierengaul, Nice Post.

This is when I went Cat skiing Argentinian Style $10 a ride up and No guide Very Happy

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

abc, Granite, which we did a number of times, is the big, impressive valley which runs behind the whole inbounds resort and you can access it from several gates. From the tram end there are easy ways down through trees, but the rest you are finding gullies down through cliff bands. It is backcountry, not side-country - in fact, as far as I know, the only backcountry you can access without skinning. Other than that it looked like you need to skin quite a lot to get anywhere.

I'm happy to do an hour of skinning. Our fifth day at Jackson when we did about a 3 hour skin was a bit much, though the day was certainly memorable and I'd be prepared to do that much once on a holiday. We missed the Steep and Deep induction party due to getting back so late.

Thank you for all those tips Kieren- lots of food for thought. I did ski at Whistler once (as a lead-in to the Heli week based in Stewart BC I mentioned in an earlier post) and really enjoyed the inbounds (especially having 2 days with Extremely Canadian) but didn't get to discover the out of bounds. Yes, I love tree skiing and agree that little folds and gullies are often more fun than big open slopes. I am tending to go for that sort of skiing much more with European guides, especially in smaller resorts which are not known for off-piste, so nobody else skis it. I did not mean that any one descent needs to be big vertical but got the impression that cat skiing you couldn't get in much in a day. I take your point about good powder, which we get less often here, but heavier snow has its interest too.

As for Heli I mentioned elsewhere that it was a one-off - I don't have the money to do a week of it again - but your ideas are interesting about Standby. Unfortunately the time I did it they had had high winds and the half of the skiing which was above the tree-line was all breakable crust - though the tree skiing was great. But not good value compared to just a good guide, as I said before.

Of course you can have a bad week of snow anywhere (my last time in Chamonix was dreadful - almost everything wind-blasted and the remainder skied out) but I was surprised at Jackson that so few people reacted by skiing the powder in Granite. And beyond Granite we didn't see a single track, even in the far distance.

Help!!

Cat Skiing and Gratuities (er,that's tips to you and me...)

snowHeads Forum Index >>> The Piste