Abby's desire to work doing what she loves, and to spread the joy she receives from climbing, prompted her to start guiding. During the summer of 2000, she was a guide for Jackson Hole Mountain Guides. With her husband, Rich Marshall, Abby works as an independent guide in their business, Mountain Guiding. She is co-owner of Ascending Women, a women-only guiding school, which she founded with fellow professional climber Kim Czismasia. She is an ACMG (Association of Canadian Mountain Guides) certified guide, a Wilderness First Responder, and has a CAA Level 1 Avalanche certification.

Before moving to the states, Abby was a member of the Australian National Gymnastics team (1984-87), a sport for which she received a full athletic scholarship to U.C. Berkeley in 1988. She is the recipient of the Mask and Dagger Prize for extraordinary contributions to Dramatic Art (dance) and she regularly publishes articles in climbing publications in the U.S., Australia, and Europe. Abby's also an animal lover; she saved the life of a dog that fell of the top of a cliff where she was climbing. She has been working in the outdoors for 12 years.

In Her Own Words

The Job
"As a mountain guide, my job is varied and full. I am currently making my way through the ACMG mountain guide's exams, which entails 5 exams over about 5 years and will cost a total of about $20,000 to become a fully certified mountain guide. This summer, I will be both guiding and practicing my guiding skills in order to pass the guide's exam. This means getting into the alpine as much as possible, even if the weather is not as good as it could be.

"For example, yesterday my husband and I climbed the northeast Ridge of Mt. Athabasca in the Canadian Rockies in a white out. I led the day as if I was guiding while Rich acted as my client and examiner. (Rich is a fully certified UIAGM guide who examines for the ACMG.) I enjoyed the challenge of route finding with no visibility—it's good to put yourself into situations like that, so that you can be calm and practiced when such situations present themselves spontaneously. I will also be guiding private clients this summer on multi-pitch rock routes and mountaineering. I am putting together a women's rock clinic through Ascending Women, which entails gathering a great group of guides. (Some of the most accomplished and highly certified women guides in Canada have agreed to be a part of it.) Putting together clinics takes quite a bit of organization, so that they run smoothly when the day comes. Because I mostly work for myself, I need to be highly motivated, creative, and organized in order to keep the business going, but I also enjoy the freedom and variation I can bring to my life and work, so it's worth it."

How She Got There
"I started climbing while I was at university at U.C. Berkeley. I began to work at Cal Adventures, U.C. Berkeley's outdoor adventure department, a year after I started climbing. This brought some institutional knowledge to my fledgling skills and really put me on the right track technically. Since then I have worked for many outdoor companies, guide services, and climbing gyms. I've also created my own work within those frameworks—travelling with a climbing technique clinic, private climbing coaching, writing operation manuals, and training staff in newly opened climbing gyms, etc.

"I did not take intellectual steps, so to speak, to get where I am now. I simply followed my love of the mountains and the outdoors. The work followed. The years I put into climbing, simply because that was what I loved and wanted to do, have paid off in the mountain knowledge and skills I have now."

How to Get Her Job
"To become a mountain guide, one must first develop mountain sense, which only comes from climbing and skiing in the mountains for many years, in many different mountain ranges. Only then can you approach the guide's exams. I am enjoying the process of certification because it really makes me focus on my skills and knowledge. I also love learning from mountain guides who have been guiding for 20 or 30 years—you can't buy that kind of experience. You have to love people to be a mountain guide, or any kind of guide. A guide must be able to interpret the medium they are intimate with in such a way that the clients feel like they are a part of the process, not a lump on the end of the rope. The mountain guide must be interested in people from all walks of life, and in sharing full and often tiring days with all kinds of folk. Guides have endless patience and love to see people discover their capabilities and to achieve things they thought they couldn't. Guides also must explain to the clients the difference between safe conditions and the kind of conditions where you have to turn around."

Pros
"Being outside in all elements; meeting people from all over the world."

Cons
"Long stints away from home can be stressful on relationships (but can also be good if there is a balance—some time away but lots of time together)."

Salary Range
"Fully certified mountain guides in Canada make $300-500 per day, depending on what they are guiding and if they are guiding for themselves or contracting for a company (although in the States, one must be an employee of a company in order to guide under the current rules, which makes the pay lower and the variety of what you are guiding diminish)."

Her Dream Job
"Doing what I'm doing."

Do you think there's any danger in your passion becoming your career?
"As long as you keep variety in what you are guiding (easy in Canada where the seasons affect what you are guiding—from rock to alpine to ice to ski touring). Also, guiding independently (possible in UIAGM countries such as Canada) allows you to keep variety in what you are guiding. I also like to keep other ways of earning money alongside what I do, like writing, studying biology, teaching dance, and practicing yoga."

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