Don’t think this has been covered on here (it’s getting heated on UKC), but I’m guessing it’s going to have an effect on MTB holidays at Morzine and Les Arcs

Daily Telegraph link

Is there such a thing as the EVF (velo)? I’m not sure there’s really a direct comparison is there?

Is it also illegal to show a group of your mates round, or is it only a problem if there’s some element of being paid for a service?

Did they already try this with some MTB guiding companies a few years ago?

British jobs for British people!

That’s been the case for several years in Morzine.

Bike guides were getting arrested and the French banned non-french-mountain trained guides from leading groups.

As I recall only Gareth from Endlessride had done the french mountain training and was allowed to continue to lead rides. But he could no longer hire english riders who knew the routes to lead groups.

I recall that too. not sure what happened though.

But yes, it’s going to impact MTB holidays just like it will impact ski trips.

I thought Simon Butler went to court in Annecy and sorted this out about six years ago?

Simon Butler’s case was about teaching. This is specfically about leading, without teaching

THere are 30 pages over on snowheads about this

http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=93360&highlight=

Hi

I dont think the guided skiing issue will affect the Mountain biking as the French are precious about the skiing jobs more than the general biking/hiking roles. I know a few MTB guides in Morzine, will check with them. Im out there this summer riding the Portes Du Soleil event!

Paul

Edukator will be along in a minute to tell everyone how wonderful the ESF are.

Is there such a thing as the EVF (velo)? I’m not sure there’s really a direct comparison is there?

This isn’t far off the mark.

You could possibly wing it with a BAFA, but thats more aimed at looking after children. FWIW, you can guide kids on ski runs with one of these if you are part of a holiday camp (but only during the school hols)

Is it also illegal to show a group of your mates round, or is it only a problem if there’s some element of being paid for a service?

The issue is that the tour operators offer up staff with local knowledge for a guided tour of the pistes. They can do this on the cheap because the staff are happy to be able to ski all day for next to no pay.

The ESF see this as a significant amount of lost revenue for themselves. In practice a very small proportion of the casual skiers who take these tours are going to be prepared to pay ESF rates for something that used to be free.

In practice a very small proportion of the casual skiers who take these tours are going to be prepared to pay ESF rates for something that used to be free.

Especially as ESF can’t even offer the same service.

Can we ban anyone with a French qualification from operating in the UK until they get the British equivalent?

French protectionism.

ESF are already offering the service in Morzine (I think), only 34 euros per head for an afternoon’s guiding with strictly no teaching – posters appeared the day after the ruling , as I understand it.

ESF are already offering the service in Morzine

With English (not just English speaking) guides who aren’t getting kickbacks?

£30 is a bit steep and I certainly wouldn’t dream of paying that for an ‘on-piste’ guide.

20 years ago, I used to ski with a couple of mates who ran a small ski comnpany (it was more a way of them getting 8-9 weeks of subsidised skiing a year) and they regularly used to get pulled up by ESF for guiding. In fairness it was their own stupidity/vanity/poseurness (is that a word) which got their backs up as they insisted in wearing identical Degre7 gear and matching skis/boots !

Anyone know if other countries are planning to do the same? i got some filthy looks from instructors in Austria this year while patiently waiting for my GF who was following my non-instructional exagerrated movements 😉

#

don’t kid yourself, the TO ski hosts get free meals and free drinks for bringing you in – and not just in france, I was in austria last year and when I brough our gang into a restaurant, the staff asked if I wanted my free hosts drinks now or later…

ESF are already offering the service in Morzine (I think), only 34 euros per head for an afternoon’s guiding with strictly no teaching – posters appeared the day after the ruling , as I understand it.

Seriously ?
£25 for a couple of hours of on-piste guiding

http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?t=93360&start=960#2238170

surely it’s just another excuse not to go to france…

why not Austria or Italy.

christhetall – Member
Don’t think this has been covered on here (it’s getting heated on UKC), but I’m guessing it’s going to have an effect on MTB holidays at Morzine and Les Arcs

To be fair Bruce and French Erick are the only one’s getting really heated up. And at that French Erick is really just playing agent provocateur as he understands the local interests. Whereas Bruce, well he’s just mental really and there’s no surprise there.

We have heard that it is quite likely that this is going to apply to mountain bike guides in the Summer which will have an effect on Mountain bike holidays in the French Alps. However, you could always come and ride great xc in Bulgaria with ctc qualified English guides..

This will confuse the Daily Fail. “Those foreign Johnnies not letting us go over there and do their jobs, oh hang on isn’t the EU supposed to stop this, we like the Eu, Oh no we don’t, do we? arrrrgggghhhh”

I worked for First Choice Ski in Alpe d’Huez in 96/97, and my job title was Ski Explorer, which was half Ski guiding, half Ski Tech, as they had their own hire pool.
We were issued with full goretex uniforms in Company Colours (blue, turqoise and Pink) but were told at the time not to wear uniform when guiding as people were starting to get arrested at that point.

We had a good relationship withe ESF guys, as we put a lot of ski school trade their way, as we did a lot of school groups. We also did torchlit descents from a mountain restaurant, and we needed to have 1 ESF guide for every 10 people. The way the guys explained it was that they felt that to be safe in the mountains, you needed to have lived there and be able to read the conditions etc. I could see the point of some of what they were saying, and although we did a weeks training with an English ski school from Courchevel teaching us about keeping safe on the mountain etc., I can see that we were still very inexperienced.

I suppose that the mountains are more dangerous places in the winter, as the snow and freezing conditions bring their own risks, which need to be understood.

Having read it bugger all relevance to the mountain bike guiding world.

This is about being a able to show people around on Piste and tell them how to get round a resort. It is specifically not about guiding/teaching/instructing etc.

As much as a pain in the balls it may be I’m still with the idea of having a locally accredited qualification system for bike guides in the mountains. There are UK based companies who have it and are running with it so the rest can pull their fingers out.

well the problem comes from the French law which says you need to be properly qualified to lead – not to instruct, to lead. AFAIK that applies to bikes as well as skis

Bike guides were already ahead of ski hosts in terms of the crackdown. To a certain extent ski hosts don’t take their guests any where they’d be unlikely or unable to go by themselves, but some people like that kind of hand-holding. Some of the groups did start to look a bit large, and you do have to wonder if they had suitable group leadership and first aid skills just for their own sake…
With a smaller ski company it’s always nice if one of the staff comes out fro a couple of hours so “show you some stuff” but I’d expect this to be a low key, unbranded exercise with the possibility of a couple of beers at the end of it.
I terms of bike guiding – well it had to be hard to argue that it wasn’t a paid for service and a lot of people had put the effort in to get first aid a and guiding qualifications and to find good trails and routes that were less straightforward to link up, just usually the qualifications weren’t earned in France (and more than likely they weren’t paying tax on guiding)

Ski hosting and Bike guiding are two completely different issues really. I don’t know much about whats going on in the bike scene out there as was never involved in it but was pretty involved in the whole ski guiding argument until 5 years ago.

I’m speaking as a lowly ski guide who got nicked by the plod a couple of times (came to nothing, the Local ESF director intervened on my behalf) and then as a tour op who was involved in lobbying the French authorities.

Glad I’m out of it if i’m honest as it is a complete 5hit fight on both sides and there are some prize tools quite prominent on both sides of the fight who didn’t help either point of view out in any way, just served to drag this whole mess on for way longer than it needed to be.

From the little I understand about biking there are qualifications that would entitle you to become a bike guide which encompass a number of safety and competence awareness tasks which are more suitable and attainable than the qualifications the MDJS/ESF think a ski host should have. Happy to be wrong about this though as I’m by no means an expert and 5 years out of the game now but just giving my tuppence worth.

Can we ban anyone with a French qualification from operating in the UK until they get the British equivalent?

You do already. Those that post specific gripes with ESF moniteurs I’m happy to listen to, the general bashing that sometimes appears on here is unjustified. My son has spent an average of 45 days a year in the hands of ESF trainers for most of his life and I’m very satisfied with the service.

I know we’re not allowed to do paging posts, but, paging Stevo anyway.

I have had the ski guiding qualification described to me buy a mate.

Some of it makes sense in terms of guiding and instruction. You want people to be well qailified. But I’ve twice heard that the bit that really hacks people off about the ski guide qualification is the Slalom test.

They get a top level Slalom skier to ski a course. You have then have to ski it in 110% of their time.

Whats worse is of course that many locally qualified staff passed the test 20 gauloise smoking years ago and have no more hance of passing it than you

10% on a slalom is enormous. If you can’t get within 10% of the course setters time you really haven’t got what it takes. My son beat a course setters time in Tignes when he was only 13 – the times are set by guys who’ve smoked Gauloise for 20 years rather than Luc Alphand (unless you’re very unlucky). Anyhow it’s 20% for the initial tests, a local lad fell last week, picked himself up and still got within the time. The style test is more of a barrier to people not born on skis.

The speed test is tough and you have to be at the top of your game to pass. On the whole it is a good selection method for an instructor but is a little flawed. I have a friend in Val who was a fantastic kids and beginners instructor. Brilliant teaching methods and fantastic attitude. Unfortunately he couldn’t pass his speed test and eventually can no longer teach which is a real loss. He was never going to teach top-flite skiers so being able to pass the speed test was largely irrelevant. Equally I know some instructors who sailed through their speed test and can’t teach for shite and are useless.

Tour op ski guides are generally kids who are just doing it for their gap year/s and not going to make skiing a career so they are unlikely to spend the years training needed to pass their speed test just to get an £80 p/w season job. They’re just there to show people around and not instruct.

I’ve done the ski social thing every year, it’s a great way to get an idea of where everything is and which lifts to use / avoid to get around quickly. No need for the ‘guide’ to have any advance skills, it’s just a half day orientation to the resort and a good way to meet other people to ski with.

But it’s not just that is it. Imagine what would happen if a bunch of foreigners turned up in London, stuck taxi signs on the roof of their bangers and started lining up with the black cabs outside Waterloo. If you want to work in another EU country you have to work within the local laws which must of course respect European directives. If you think they aren’t respecting EU law then complain – some have, one of the reasons it’s now much easier to pass the French ski qualifications and you can guide anywhere in Europe with a UK mountain guide qualification.