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 Mark's Blog |
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Mark Seaton is an internationally-qualified Mountain Guide & children's book author. He is a member of both the British and French mountain guides associations. He lives with his wife Jane, their daughters Andrea, Florence and Sophie, and their Bernese mountain dog, Walter, in the Chamonix Valley. He works in the European Alps all the year and has done so since 1992. Mark's guiding activities are based mainly in France, Switzerland and Italy. His guiding year can be broadly divided into three main seasons:
- During the winter he is involved with taking people off-piste skiing, either using the lift systems to access off-piste skiing or with the use of helicopters and sometimes ski-planes.
- In the spring the emphasis changes towards ski-touring. Nevertheless, the off-piste sking can be wonderful too. Often touring skis are used on day tours to access even more remote off-piste. He also uses skis to ascend Mont-Blanc and then ski from its summit.
- The summer, which normally starts towards the end of June and continues until October, is for climbing and mountaineering.
The north face of Piz Badile (Charles Sherwood collection).
Who are Mark's clients?
These are people who come from all walks of life and different age groups. They are of various nationalities, & include American & British citizens.
Mark names among his clients people who have heli-skied with him in their late seventies. They include the first blind man to climb Mont-Blanc, who incidentally was the first man to reach the summit after under going a heart by-pass operation.
Mark & his client Charles Sherwood made the second British guided ascent of the notorious Eiger Nordwand in 2007.
Mark has guided various regiments of the British army including the Special Forces. Even his wife was a client before he married her!
All his clients tend to be keen to be with a native English speaker, yet someone who also speaks the local language and is in tune with the local mountaineering culture and conventions. His clients fall into two main categories:
- First, people who are keen mountaineers and skiers but have limited leisure time because of work and family commitments. What they want is to maximise their free time and achieve as much as they can in the shortest possible time frame.
- Second, Mark is involved with people who often have no mountaineering experience yet have a dream to climb one of the great European alpine peaks in safety. He will climb the famous mountains of the Eiger, Mont-Blanc and the Matterhorn, occasionally several times in the same season. During the skiing season, Mark's clients are people who have perhaps skied a considerable amount, love skiing, but are becoming a little bored with piste skiing and would like to simply experience a uniqueness and exclusivity that is often elusive when confined to regular skiing holidays.