>>1557037I read a few issues of Outside some years ago so I can confidently say that guide article is 100% fluffy bullshit.
The actual life of a guide centers around working long hours during the season (I’ve been a backcountry skiing guide, fishing, and hunting...though it is all the same). You basically get up before dawn and get gear ready for the day. Tourists start showing up after the sun is up. Most of them are so fat and feeble they can’t even walk across the parking lot easily. They expect you to be able to accommodate their various disabilities and weirdnesses even if that means performing superhuman feats. Your employers expect this if you as well.
I once took a half dozen fat feeble “photographers” with kit lenses on their DSLRs on a tour of the Lamar Valley in Yellowstone. We saw a load of buffalo and elk and eagles and even a brown bear. Two people in the group wouldn’t shut up about wanting to see wolves even though the tour didn’t mention wolves at all because you typically have to hike a bit to see them and we never got more than 100 yards from the van because this was designed for fat tourists. By the time it was over everyone was fucked off they didn’t get to see wolves so they left me middling reviews and lousy tips. Like I can just summon up wolves.
Being a guide doesn’t pay well, the clients are shit, you constantly have to find new work, and you are at the mercy of nature. It is glamorous in no way at all.
