Anyone used the Instructor Lead Guiding with the Ski Club of Great Britain?

I stopped my membership of the Ski Club of Great Britain (SCGB) a few years ago as, whilst it was a good organisation it wasn't offering me anything I could make use of, for example skiing with one of their Leaders didn't really attract me.

However, their Instructor Lead Guiding (ILG) is certainly an attraction, not least for it great value for money when compared to other companies offering off-piste curses etc. I am therefore wondering if anyone here has made use of the ILG and what was their impression?

Never used SCGB but there are a lot of instructor lead offpiste courses in chamonix and all are great value for money - All Mountain Performance, BASS, offpiste performance etc. Quite often these include at least one day with a guide to give for a more of a big mountain experience. Fantastic way for people to transfer skills from onpiste to offpiste and meet like minded people.

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Never used SCGB but there are a lot of instructor lead offpiste courses in chamonix and all are great value for money - All Mountain Performance, BASS, offpiste performance etc. Quite often these include at least one day with a guide to give for a more of a big mountain experience. Fantastic way for people to transfer skills from onpiste to offpiste and meet like minded people.

The SCGB charge £35 for members for a day of Instructor Lead Guiding, how much do the companies you mention charge?

Normally you would be looking at 300GBP, for ratio of 1:6. One of the days would also include a guide in order to allow for some form of work on glacier.

Would be interesting to see what ratios are be offered by SCGB and how that affects the experience. Difficult to segments ski abilities if you are needing big groups and the type of terrain you can ski are clearly going to be affected.

Still superficially is a good price - too good? Lets wait for a response from someone who has tried.

Ranchero_1979 wrote:Normally you would be looking at 300GBP, for ratio of 1:6. One of the days would also include a guide in order to allow for some form of work on glacier.

Would be interesting to see what ratios are be offered by SCGB and how that affects the experience. Difficult to segments ski abilities if you are needing big groups and the type of terrain you can ski are clearly going to be affected.

Still superficially is a good price - too good? Lets wait for a response from someone who has tried.

I just had a look at Snoworks and they charge £385 for 5 half-days and £525 for 5 full-days so the SCGB offer is seemingly very good value.

Furthy34 wrote:I just had a look at Snoworks and they charge £385 for 5 half-days and £525 for 5 full-days so the SCGB offer is seemingly very good value.

The Ski Club's offer does look good value but it's not directly comparable with an actual course.

For starters, Snoworks aim for a maximum group size of 6 - I think I read that SCGB go up to 8 (can anyone confirm?); which is a large group to be off-piste with especially if they've literally rocked up together for the first time that morning.

Most importantly though, for an actual course - whether Snoworks or not - the instructor will have a good idea of everyone's abilities after day 1 and will plan following days appropriate to that known ability level. A key element of the Snoworks courses is that they will move people between groups after the first session - to get that consistency.

Definitely, if you just fancy a day or two doing "some" off-piste with an instructor taking you on a safe route, the SCGB's arrangement looks good value - but it's not really the same (as a course).


But hopefully someone can chime in with an actual experience to save us all speculating... :lol:

The 100 gbp a day of snoworks is consistent with Cham and decent value when you consider guides day rate or instructor day rate is going to be 300+gbp.

Either way seems to me SCGB should be more precise with naming:
1) instructor lead guiding suggests they are neither instructing and inherently an instructor is not a guide.
Is this service designed to replace resort/chalet host; in which case am surprised they reference offpiste as this requires level 4 instructor.

After the SCGB's own guiding service was banned in France they replaced it with a guiding service provided by the Evolution 2 ski school, who still provide it in some of the resorts listed. Instead of somebody with no recognised qualifications taking you off piste, they now use qualified instructors. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/ski/news/Ski-Club-gets-around-hosting-ban-in-France/ The service cannot be compared with a course provided by a ski school, or the service provided by a qualified mountain guide.

It's cheap because it's heavily subsidised by the SCGB, but on top of the basic price you will have pay a booking fee and hire avi gear.