Show Notes:

Margaret’s links:

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/margaret_wheeler/
• Meet Margaret Wheeler (AMGA video)
• Among Mountain Guides, This Woman Is a Rarity – Ski Mag
• Why IFMGA-certified guide Margaret Wheeler believes that variety makes a difference in the mountains (backcountrymagazine.com)
• The Ultimate Guide | Dartmouth Alumni Magazine

Episode Intro:

Dear listeners of the Female Guides Requested Podcast. Happy Wednesday. This is your host Ting Ting delivering this wonderful new episode from my home country Taiwan. I am very excited about today’s guest, Margaret Wheeler. I still remember how amazed I was years ago, seeing her, very pregnant, teaching technical skills in an AMGA video. After I started this podcast I kept getting requests to have her on the show. I was fortunate to finally steal a couple hours from her busy life!

In the guiding world, Margaret needs little introduction. She is the second U.S. woman to earn the IFMGA mountain guide title. She is an instructor of guide training for the AMGA and serves on its board of directors and as president of the organization. She is involved in avalanche education through her work as an AIARE (American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education) instructor and trainer. Right now Margaret and her husband Matt Farmer split their time between the Wood River Valley Idaho and Europe.

Margaret is a wonderful story teller and her life never has a dull moment. She started chasing her brothers around the ski slopes of New England which led to a stint ski bumming in Chamonix France right after college. She bounced back and forth between the so-called real life and wild adventures and eventually found her happy true identity in mountain guiding. She also shared so much wisdom and philosophy about guiding from years of experience and her analytical approach to problem solving. She provided a viewpoint on guiding as a career, her expectations towards guide education and how the guiding community can help each other navigate through various challenges. Margaret talked specifically about how to make guiding a sustainable career and how to balance that with having a family

Time flew by quickly and I didn’t even get to ask all of my questions. I hope I will soon have a chance to do another follow up interview with her. Listeners please enjoy this fantastic episode and let me know what other questions you might want to ask Margaret next time!

Things We Talked about:

• Margaret first set her foot in the outdoors at the age of 3
• Outdoors are very accessible in New England
• From ski racing to off trail
• Chasing brothers on skis and binged ski movies when the conditions were not ideal which planted a seed of ski bumming
• Got some inheritance money from grandma and went straight to Chamonix after college
• “Stalked” Hilaree Nelson after spotting her on the slopes and eventually formed one of strongest and most important relationships in Margaret’s life
• Tested out the pro skier path for a bit but didn’t find the joy
• Dark side of ski bumming culture
• Went back to the real life pursing a master in engineering in Washington
• Found the true calling after taking her ski guide course with the AMGA
• When in doubt, pick something hard and go for it
• Why is being analytical is important and fulfilling to Margaret in mountain guiding
• How to read clients and pick and design a good route and progression for them?
• How do people set guiding up as a sustainable career
• What’s taught differently in Women’s Rock Guide Course
• What does the experience contribute to the progression of the standard AMGA mountain guide programs
• How about Margaret’s personal experience on making guiding a real job
• Having her first daughter in 2014 and second one in 2016, things had to change
• Margaret reprogrammed herself to find a community that feeds her needs
• How did kids come into the picture?
• Coexistence of analytical and emotional
• What kind of changes and trends did Margaret see in the guiding worlds