American Mountain Guide Association Accreditation

Estab­lished in 1986, the AMGA Accred­i­ta­tion Pro­gram endors­es guide ser­vices, climb­ing pro­grams, and/​or school or uni­ver­si­ty out­door pro­grams that offer climb­ing instruc­tion, guid­ed climb­ing, or ski­ing ser­vices. Accred­i­ta­tion pro­vides a con­sis­tent stan­dard for judg­ing the reli­a­bil­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism of a climb­ing ser­vice by ensur­ing it:

• Con­forms to indus­try standards;
• Guar­an­tees rig­or­ous and uni­form guide training;
• Is com­pli­ant with state and fed­er­al law;
• Pro­motes eth­i­cal busi­ness practices.

Expec­ta­tions:

• Busi­ness­es are com­mit­ted to high tech­ni­cal stan­dards, strong pro­grams, and a qual­i­ty staff of engaged and engag­ing climb­ing instruc­tors and guides;
• Busi­ness­es have AMGA cer­ti­fied guides and climb­ing instruc­tors on staff.
• Busi­ness­es encour­age staff mem­bers to pur­sue AMGA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, pro­vide men­tor­ing, and sup­port staff through the AMGA train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process.
• Accred­it­ed busi­ness­es con­duct annu­al ter­rain spe­cif­ic train­ings uti­liz­ing AMGA cer­ti­fied staff members.