ESF take UK tour ops to court over alleged illegal ski guiding

A snowHead

While ski guiding isn't an essential part of my holidays, I've had some fantastic days with guides, both on and off piste. Sometimes the TO rep, sometimes paid guides and best of all my kids when they're working the season and so know their way around.

A snowHead

@under a new name, you see you are capable of understanding some times.

@stewart woodward, Happy

classic

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

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It's an irritation, isn't it? How silly do you have to be to be unable to read a piste map. Blindly following somebody around the mountain takes away the fun of exploring. And you have to be nice to the ski guide, which if you're in a group of chums isn't necessarily the best. And buy them lunch. Over-rated IMO.

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After all it is free

Apparently this is an issue for the kids disability ski group my daughter skis with where all the parents/guides ski with various groups. There is some ski instruction (not paid for) for siblings who come along so they've written to the mayor in la plagne to determine the position of the commune

I invariably go ski-ing on my own, as none of my friends ski, and so I found the ski-guiding a boon. Don't knock it as it depends on your circumstances how much you use it.

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It's all very well for certain snowheads to be a bit sneery about mere mortals using ski hosting or guiding; to take the p*ss out of people cos they "can't read a piste map"; or that they just need to chat up a few people on the lift to find a ski chum. But that is not the reality for many one week a year skiers.

I spent a season a few years ago as a ski host for a middle sized, middle market chalet company in the 3V. Our chalet catered for 19 max, and we never had fewer than 15 guests all season. We were located with 2 other similarly sized chalets in the Les Menuires side of the 3V. I hosted 4 days per week. I never skied with fewer than 2 guests, and I would guess on average it was 6-8, and on a couple of occasions-15. Not a bad hit rate you may think. I think that was partly because I met them all in the chalet and they saw me working there-We made it easy for them.

I was good company I think, not a youngster (40), not a particularly fast or brilliant skier ( much like my guests, especially early in the season), organised, knew where I was going, knew which lifts went where, where the nifty short cuts/back routes were, how long it all took, where the queues would be, where they wouldn't be, where the best snow would be on any given day and on any given part of the day, where was a good place for lunch (and book it in my best french) and how to time things to avoid getting stuck in the wrong valley. As a result there were only 2 days in the whole season where I didn't ski with guests -and that was because I was helping cover for 2 staff who had left the resort early in April. They genuinely enjoyed it; it meant they did not dither and debate (and fall out) with each other about where to go each day; it maximised their experience of the 3V as they covered far more ground, and parts of the ski area they would never have even realised were worth exploring if they hadn't known exactly where they were going. They did not buy me lunch as we had arrangements with certain (good) restaurants about a freebie for me if I bought in 6 guests. Usually I paid for my own lunch if that didn't work. We stopped for a coffee if they wanted to stop, or carried on if they didn't.

Guests clearly had a great time. I never got the impression they were "blindly following me around the mountain". With smaller numbers and good skiers, I was there to make suggestions and point people in the right direction. With the more intermediate level skiers (everyone had to be able to ski a red run in something like a parallel), they could be assured that they never ended up anywhere that would scare the pants off them.

Before I knew the 3V like the back of my hand, I too had used a hosting service and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially on the odd occasion that I went skiing on my own, or with a friend who perhaps wasn't quite as good a skier as me. Would I use one now? In a big interlinked ski area I think I would, at least for a couple of days-somewhere like the Portes du Soleil where you want to get right across the ski domain and see how it all fits together and get back before the lifts close. Having said that, I am a technically better skier, faster and more interested in taking in the off piste opportunities, so it's not such a benefit for me. But that's not to say that it's a service that should be sniffed at.

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@Perty, though I've never used a ski-hosting service, I agree with you. The fact that it doesn't suit everyone is beside the point.

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Well said @Perty, I used to love the Mark Warner ski hosting, especially as it was one of the few companies (maybe the only one) which offered 4.5 days of hosting. It cuts out all the faffing of looking at piste maps, and stops endless discussion over where to go - meaning more ski time. It also enabled me to ski with other people on solo trips and I always had an awesome time.

I've used Mark Warner ski hosting and enjoyed it.

You know it makes sense.

@Perty, nice write up, not to be argumentative but did you receive any training prior to undertaking your hosting ? (First Aid, FIS code etc)

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A snowHead

@Dav, interesting, good to hear...

A snowHead

After a few years taking the family skiing in France we gave up with the country. ESF teaching was well below par compared to the equivalent in Italy or Switzerland. Almost complete absence of queues in the US and Switzerland, even during school holidays. Really friendly approach to kids in Italy. What really got me was the French attitude to queuing - fine for them to elbow everyone out of the way and ski over other people's skis, but massive indignation if you behaved the same way. The ESF is a cartel that wants to make it as difficult as possible for anyone else to compete with them (and I base this on the experience of a friend who qualified in Chamonix with the ESF but hated the whole experience). I haven't skied in France for ten years now and even a cheap Euro doesn't attract me: the whole experience is so much better elsewhere. The shame is that France has a lot of great Domaines, but they need to change thir attitude if they're to make the most of the great potential of the country.

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Does seem that Austria/Italy going/gone the same way so not particularly a French/ESF issue. Appreciate it cab be attractive for those skiing alone/less frequently. Done it and was fun even if not convinced hosts should be leading a group. Indeed can be an added convenience to ski with someone who knows the resort but never had a faff with maps or more than a very brief discussion about where to go wth anyone. Guess lucky to have various friends who enjoy map reading/route selection while I prefer the flexibility of doing things off the cuff/smaller groups. TOs/Hotels/Tourist Office often still arrange hosting/social skiing/give tips on where to go. Can see both sides but think we will probably have to adapt to hosting as was being a thing of the past .

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skimottaret, in answer to your question-nope, nothing formal! I'd actually been employed as the chalet cook, but things were changed on my arrival and I agreed to host/guide instead.(It wasn't really what I had wanted when I planned my season as it gives you no free time at all!)
I was, at the start, a not particularly confident red and blue run skier-pretty much operating at the same ability level and speed as most of the guests who wanted hosting. The better speed merchants tended to do their own thing. What I did have was a prodigious ability to grasp the ins and outs of the 3V piste map in about 3 days (I'd skied in the 3V a bit before). Thankfully my skiing ability improved no end by the middle of January-though by the end of the season, I would long for good skiers to be in the chalet so we could be more adventurous.
At the start of the season I and the other ski guides just went out for a ski with the owner of the business to check out that I knew what was expected of me, how fast to ski, what to do in the event of an accident (as in where to get help, not first aid or anything), plus a day where we went off exploring the area. It was drummed into my head that I skied with the guests and not the other way round, and that I was not actually being paid to do this job. It was, I admit, a bit of a fudge in that regard-as the chalet co had a clear idea of where the potential legal pitfalls were of "being paid to guide". (As a near local you can probably work out which chalet operator this was!) In those days it was safe to ski in the company ski jackets without getting grief, though I know that changed a few seasons later. We had a good relationship with the local ESF -the small spin off team based in Reberty, Bruyeres (now operating as Skischool) who never took issue with what we did, and who actually came over to the chalets on the first night of the week to sort out lessons.
Each host/guide definitely had their own distinct style, and consequently their guest numbers varied accordingly. I recall one younger guy based in Meribel saying his approach was to ski the pants off his guests on day one, to the point that no-one wanted to ski with him for the rest of the week, so he got all that time for himself! Another host tended to stand at the top of a run, tell the guests which lift they were aiming for and then blast down the hill leaving them all behind. There was also the tale of the ski host with zero sense of direction who lasted about a week!
So it was undoubtedly very informal. We did expect a certain ability level from the clients to ensure that everyone could manage blue and red runs, though occasionally if a big party all wanted to ski together and some were a bit slower, we would ski with them. I was basically the guests' human piste map and restaurant booker. They all survived and I never lost one either!

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@Perty, perhaps things have changed a bit since you did the job. I have no issue with hosting and think it is an excellent service and it would be a shame if some compromise isn't reached but think there should be some training and licensing similar to a winter leader course. My experience years ago was not good. The hosts split us up into a "fast" group slow group etc and the fast guy was quite dangerous causing an accident showing off, but to be fair this was years ago...

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I have been ski-ing for a long time, and when my husband died, I had to go on my own. I used to use Mark Warner, Ski Olympic and Ski Miquel which were all fantastic. Being an older woman, and quite shy, I was never able to ask people that didn't know me, if I could join them. I am a very competent skier, but I thought that they would take one look at me and think 'No way would I want to ski with that old woman, she will probably hold me up' Hence ski-guiding was my saviour.

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@skimottaret, agree that sort of compromise would be ideal solution having had to help our host of the mountain and the chaos of them taking people down slopes they could not handle.

After all it is free

Does still seem to offered in CH and some places in Austria. Really wouldn't worry about age especially if a competent skier. Most People I know are just thinking I hope I can ski like that competently when they get older. I think that skiing is an activity that you can enjoy across generations is one of the best things baout skiing.

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Maybe some sort of training is a good idea. However, like good and bad ski instructors, I think it comes down to the personality and common sense of the person concerned. Maybe dispensing with using 19 year old speed merchants would be a good start!
The moment you give people extensive training, you are actually putting more of a responsibility on the guide, and less on the guest to look after themselves ( bear with me on this, I'm a lawyer wink

). It's a bit like clearing snow on your front path- if you don't do it at all, then you have given responsibility for safety to your visitor, and they have to look where they are going but if you do clear it, and then fail to put enough salt down, someone will blame you if they break their leg. I know this may be me playing devil's advocate here, but worth a thought. In the USA, land of litigation, they have local ski hosts all over the mountain and no one blinks an eye...and don't even get me started on the poor minimum standards for instructors over there...

I actually understand the french approach, don't get me wrong, and don't subscribe to the Daily Mail "they are picking on us cos we're Brits" train of thought.

What I would really like to know however, are the actual stats of people injured or killed out with ski hosts, rather than on days when they are self guiding. If there were evidence of a statistically significant record of a higher level of injuries, then there would be something we could all work with. My guess however, is that no more people are injured with ski hosts than without, and quite possibly fewer, as they don't end up in slopes that are beyond their ability by mistake (despite skimottaret's, experience

).

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You know it makes sense.

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

A snowHead

A snowHead

Surely one of the main reasons for using a ski host or where available a SCGB rep is to share your skiing experience with other like minded skiers, you meet and make new friends and you have a day of shared fun and experiences. This is not about not being able to read a piste map or find your way around a resort although there may be a small minority who do like hosting for this reason. Not everyone on the mountain is there with friends or wildly eperienced and able to whoop up and down every run, mogul field and couloir, some people like the gentler experience of skiing around with others and sharing their love of the mountains with those people they meet.

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I'm a one-week-a-year skier, so probably in the minority here, and I would certainly use ski hosting again if it was available. I only got to do it once before it was banned :(

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@FFIRMIN, @pinball13, but you can still do that without the physical prescence of the ski host on the slope. I thought these new 'SCAmassadors' were grouping people together to go skiing and meeting them later. I couldn't possibly comment that some smaller TOs seem to be carrying on as normal and just not wearing their uniform.

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@Hells Bells, I expected our TO (skiworld) to give us some advice on the best places to go and help organise groups, but there wasn't anything offered instead of ski hosting. Obviously you cope without it, but I for one would like ski hosting back.

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After all it is free

@davidof, I thought it all started with the Le Ski case a couple of years ago - do you know when the first successful prosecutions happened? The first, and last, time I had ski hosting was in Jan 2012 with Ski Olympic.

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So to deduce:
Some people like guiding / hosting
It used to be included in the price of the holiday whether you used it or not (you are paying for it)
French authorities allow guiding if it is by somebody with what they consider to have the relavant qualifications

The obvious solution would be for TOs to contract guides say 2/3 days per week, not through the ESF, but through the Toursit Office ( O.T.).
The O.T. get to chose who they use, and obtain a reasonable rate. Ski Schools may offer their services to the OT at a good rate as they can use it as an opportunity to promote their classes.

When we owned a business in Avoriaz, there were 2 meetings a year organised by the O.T. with local businesses, and the mayor and Tour Operators were included. ( There were probably many behind closed mdoors too, between PV, Annie Famose OT etc..)These were where the businesses would work with the OT for the upcoming seasons to discuss OT activities such as radio, animations, fireworks, building works, press relases, new promotions / services, AOB etc.. The OT in Avoriaz were VERY accommodating to the TOs, as they represent a reasonable (and very reliable) chunk of business for the resort. The OT were also very powerful, and carried a lot of sway with the ski schools and ESF.

If one OT provided this service ( which they could part subsidise from the Taxe de Sejour if the will were there ), the others would follow.
Users could make a small contribution say EUR10, TOs say EUR1 p/w per guest in resort and the OT 10cts from the EUR6 p/w Taxe de Sejour.
In a resort of 10000 beds this would create a weekly budget of over EUR 1500 which would pay easily for 12 person-days of guiding per week. (Even at ESF rates)

This way, you get to meet like minded skiers and boarders of all nationalities ( not just those who have used the same chalet / TO)
The resort can promote the guiding service.
Ski schools can promote their services
TOs can offer guiding.

The idea is to for the TOs to work with the OTs and Ski Schools, rather than working against them.
This would offer a win-win-win-win solution to this, but it just requires a reasoably pragmatic approach from the TOs ant OTs.

Help!!

ESF take UK tour ops to court over alleged illegal ski guiding

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