This spring we are super excited to be announcing new partnerships with organizations and individuals in our community. Read on to learn about the latest of these:

Island Alpine Guides and North Island College

Recently completed, our new partnership with North Island College has IAG courses being recognized for credit in the NIC Adventure Guiding Certificate program. This partnership can work for you in two ways: 1) If you have taken IAG courses and have been thinking about a career in adventure tourism, you can now apply to have those IAG courses recognized for credit saving you both time and money. These credits go toward your pursit of the Adventure Guiding Certificate at NIC and if you wish to go further can move you toward the two year Tourism and Hospitality Management diploma, which will advance your business education and can provide further credit toward business degrees at NIC as well as tourism management degrees province wide. 2) If you are a student in the Adventure Guiding Certificate program at NIC you can now choose to mix mountain based skills training options in with the watersports currently offered in the program by taking IAG courses and having them recognized for credit. Options include Avalnche Skills Training, Winter Mountain Travel and Mountain Skills Training. Check out www.nic.bc.ca/program/adventure_guiding_certificate and contact the Adventure Guiding Certificate program director at NIC or Island Alpine Guides for more information.

Island Alpine Guides and Power To Be

For us at IAG some partnerships make good business sense while others just feel good to us. The latter is defiinitely true of our relationship with Power To Be. Power To Be provides adventure-based programs designed for youth and families in need of support. Through a collaborative approach and caring staff, Power To Be inspires connections with nature and the discovery of limitless ability. IAG provides tecnical leadership support to the Wilderness School Program at Power To Be. The Wilderness School fosters positive social development and life skills through outdoor adventure and education. The program offers adventurous overnight weekend programs every month and a multi-day expeditions each summer. As a three-year co-ed program, starting in Grade 8, the Wilderness School is designed to work with a wide range of youth that could benefit from positive and healthy extra-curricular outdoor programs, which they might not otherwise have opportunity to do. Learn more about Power To Be at www.powertobe.ca.

Island Alpine Guides and Lyle Fast

Partnerships are not just about organizations. Sometimes they are with individuals. Such is the case with our new partnership with an old friend and legend of island mountaineering, Lyle Fast. Lyle was Vancouver Islands first fully certified Association of Canadian Mountain Guides Ski Guide when he attained that qualification in 1991. Before and since he has been something of a legend on the island mountain scene logging many firsts and mentoring many people. We are very excited to announce that Lyle is joining the guiding team at IAG. We are also very excited to announce that he will be spearheading our latest winter project starting next winter: Vancouver Island's first ever hut based ski and snowboard touring. You can read more about Lyle here and about our new hut based program here. Watch this space next autumn for the official launch of our but based programs!

Finally, while we have your attention, here are a few things that we have coming up which have some space available on them:

July 18-20 Mountain Skills Fly-in Course. $795pp includes heli.

July 19-20 Intro to Rock. $295pp.

July 26-27 Learn to Lead on Rock. $390pp.

August 2-4 Comox Glacier Hike. $395pp.

August 9-10 Intro to Rock. $295pp.

These are just a few of the things we have coming up. Check our our web site and if you see things that interest you but not available dates, just get in touch and we'll add dates to our offerings that suit you. Most of our programs are done at such a low ratio that one person starting a trip will get us well on our way to filling it!

Have a safe spring and early summer and we'll look forward to seeing you in the mountains this summer!

Jan and the team at Island Alpine Guides