Tipping Guides

My sisters and their families (4 adults and 5 kids) are getting two guides for a 1/2 day out at Devil’s Lake. They are not experienced climbers, so will mostly likely be doing easy stuff (5.6ish).

I believe she is paying $625 total for the day. What is a good tip for each guide....20% (which would be about $120 or $60 per guide)?

Thanks!

I think the guides would be very content with the 20% you outlined. I sure would be for a half day!!

Last time I used a guide I gave the dude $100, for two guys, and we didn't really climb that long. But he had to drive down to Eldorado Springs from Estes, where he lived, so I took that into consideration. I think it was $150 per person.  I also gave him some brand new dog-bones w/o carabiners.  His looked very well used, and in need of replacement, and I happened to have some that had never been used.

For DL, I'd give each guide $75, minimum. 

Chris Fedorczak wrote: My sisters and their families (4 adults and 5 kids) are getting two guides for a 1/2 day out at Devil’s Lake. They are not experienced climbers, so will mostly likely be doing easy stuff (5.6ish).

I believe she is paying $625 total for the day. What is a good tip for each guide....20% (which would be about $120 or $60 per guide)?

Thanks!

Do people really tip that much?

I hate tipping it should be banned for expected part of income be it waiter or whatever. 240$ for 2 people 10 hours is like 14$ per hour (assuming most guides based on some I talked to do like 4 hours at most trips and alot of times the people are done in 2 hours). I don't know how much they get paid but at the same time you are getting paid to climb stuff.

ViperScale . wrote:

I hate tipping it should be banned for expected part of income be it waiter or whatever..

Tipping is voluntary, so continue not tipping if that's how you roll.

As a guide (mountain, not rock) we consider 10-15% to be normal. (More for good service and less for bad of course).  When people don't tip I get paid $100 for a 15-18hr day in which I expose myself to significant object hazard and cook food and make camps for our clients. When people do tip it ends up being a bit over 200 typically. (I do enjoy the work either way)  Take that for what it's worth... 

As a guide, 60 to 80 each depending on service they give is preferred. If they work hard, tip well. If they phone it in bring it up with their boss

Briggs Lazalde wrote: Don't go based off %s. Different service jobs have higher or lower overhead for the actual guide or provider. If you do go %s aim high. Make them want to work w u again. Id tip 50% the money is obviously there and won't break the bank. Guides don't get paid enough. If the guide provides comforts and shows extra effort ,make sure to show extra effort as well

what are you talking about?  You would tip 50%?  It's common protocol to use the same tipping % throughout all service industries.  15-25% which is a large range.  Nothing wrong with tipping 20% to a guide, that's a generous tip.  Nobody tips 50%, it's not the customer's fault if the guide feels they are underpaid.  I don't have to throw all my money at a waiter because the company he works for are cheap bastards, not my problem.  Also guides have rates all over the board, a guide in the tetons can be like $1200 for the owen spaulding route, which is barely 5th class, and a guide in the sierras might be $300 for 10 pitches of alpine granite. If you need a standardized calculation, 20% is good and fair.  If you FEEL like tipping more, go ahead but don't ask others to leave 50% of the fee for gratuity.  

IMO, if you can afford $300 to hire a guide for the day, you can afford a $60 - $100 tip.

I was out on a work trip onetime and was talking about getting a guide to do some stuff for night climbing in a very limited time frame. The area where I was out had questionable legality for climbing at night although it wasn't illegal so the guiding company just told me here is a number of a guy that will go with you pay him whatever you were planning on paying us. I like that better than paying 300$ + and not knowing what was going to the guide etc.

Maybe they should tell you how much the guide is making so you know how much to time but at the same time that may make people not want to hire a guide at all when 90% is going to a company that just set it up.

I have done very limited guiding of trips mostly just taking a few people out and setting up top rope for them (I just like being outside even if I am baby sitting others don't need to pay me). Whenever I have been out with a guide it isn't probably like a normal guide taking out people. I have had guides tell me I was the first person they ever let lead anything so I think when I have been out with a guide it is more like them just getting paid to have fun climbing not really looking out after someone new.

No need to complicate matters. 15%-25% based on how you feel the service was.

Next week I am going to Custer in SD for two days. My partner had abdominal surgery and is going to be a staying home. I called Sylvan and rounded me up a guide for a couple days, and if the dude is cool, and holds my rope they way I like   I'll give him an extra $100 for two days guiding.  

Seriously, all I really need is a belayer, but since he is going to probably insist on leading at first, I want to make sure we are climbing some cool things I haven't done before, that are at my limit. 

Remember..  What's the difference between a guide and a large pizza?  
A large pizza can feed a family of four.  Please tip the guides..

ViperScale . wrote:I think when I have been out with a guide it is more like them just getting paid to have fun climbing not really looking out after someone new.

Congratulations, you got guided.  

For the OP, I'd say $125-200 is the right range.  

Forever Outside wrote:

what are you talking about?  You would tip 50%?  It's common protocol to use the same tipping % throughout all service industries.  15-25% which is a large range.  Nothing wrong with tipping 20% to a guide, that's a generous tip.  Nobody tips 50%, it's not the customer's fault if the guide feels they are underpaid.  I don't have to throw all my money at a waiter because the company he works for are cheap bastards, not my problem.  

There were a couple nudges at service industry workers and their employers, but this stood out.  

I don't think it's that the guide 'feels they are underpaid.' They are underpaid.  It's this way across all service industries.  

As a restaurant owner that values my employees greatly, and does his best to pay them well..I can say that most restaurant owners are not the "cheap bastards." It's the customers. If we started paying our employees a living wage (~$18.50/hr in Oregon), and built that cost into your bill, you wouldn't use the service.  I imagine it's the same for a guide service.  If the owners were to increase their prices to start paying each guide $200/day so they could actually live off their paycheck, customers would balk.  Instead, we have this screwed up system, primarily in the U.S., where customers want to have the power of the final say through tipping.  The argument goes something like, "This isn't a necessity, it's a luxury. Maybe the (waiter/guide/salon worker/etc) should have got a 'real job.'"  These are all real jobs, but somehow it was decided they weren't worth real pay, and prices for the service reflect that so we as owners have to rely on you as customers to make up the difference.  

If you choose to eat out, use any sort of guide, go to the spa, get your haircut, etc, etc.... tip and tip well.  Whatever the service is, you needed it and the person providing it needs paid or they wouldn't be doing the work.  In my opinion, tipping shouldn't exist, but as long as it does it should start at 20% for the person just being there, and go up.  If you don't want to tip appropriately, don't use the service... teach yourself to climb/raft/hangglide/etc; only eat at home; cut your own hair....

I think 10-15% is about normal, but then, most with a full Ski or Alpine Guide cert in Canada are making a living wage. It's a weird to think of guides as a service industry: if you have someone who's qualified, then you're really paying for a journeyman/master trades-person to manage risk for you.

s.price wrote:

If tipping were banned those who bitch about tipping would just bitch about the high cost of their meal.

Paying a server a set wage removes that incentive to provide exceptional service. Why step it up when your wage is set in stone.
I know servers who make $300 in a five hour shift. At a pizza joint.
If the owner had to pay their servers $60 an hour to maintain exceptional service your medium pizza would cost $200.
I tip really well if the service warrants such. Servers will remember you for 2 reasons. Great tipping or shitty tipping.

Which is why tipping is retarded. I would much rather pay twice for my food than tip. At least I know what I am paying for when people bitch about never getting good tips and you hear stories about people making 300$ in a 5 hour shift?

Tipping should be what it is there for. Everyone should make a living wage and tipping should only be expected if you are insanely good and helpful at your job. It is screwed up when you are expected to tip unless the person is complete shit and even than most people these days feel like they still have to tip even if the waiter is shitty.

I would much prefer a system where tips are only expect if you do something above expected job. That or I need to put out a tip jar for my code I write. Technically as a software engineer I have gotten some real tips from the people in my company I write code for. I have had some request come in for software changes that if they went through our normal system would have taken a month or more but I knew they needed it so I bypassed the system and spent a night working and got it out for them in a day. They knew what I was doing and bought me a cheese cake for all the extra work I did.

That is where "tip" should come in when you do something above what is expected in your job. If all you are doing is being nice while waiting a table how does that make you any different than me writing expected code? Why should they get tipped... o yea because our stupid system says you don't have to pay them and they expect a tip. I love the few restaurants I have been in that ask you not to tip and you know what they didn't cost that much more than a normal restaurant and the service was above average.

Also you have all these places that do pooled tipping system where all the waiters put the tips together and they split them. That is the worst system. I have been at places where I gave a waiter 0$ because she was that bad and gave 20$ tip to the waiter who helped us and it wasn't even her table. It would suck if you had someone you worked with that was that bad getting mostly shit tips because they were bad and you got really good tips and had to split with them.

For the OP...I've done similar, with similar amounts of kids...the guides were great and the whole party had fun...the extra $150 for the day was easy to part with on that alone. Dividing the total bill by 9, in your case, might make easier to see the value for a fun day.

In my case, 2 of the 4 kids climb today as a result of that outing.

Buck Rio wrote: Next week I am going to Custer in SD for two days. My partner had abdominal surgery and is going to be a staying home. I called Sylvan and rounded me up a guide for a couple days, and if the dude is cool, and holds my rope they way I like   I'll give him an extra $100 for two days guiding.  

Seriously, all I really need is a belayer, but since he is going to probably insist on leading at first, I want to make sure we are climbing some cool things I haven't done before, that are at my limit. 

Sylvan Rocks is a great guide service with awesome climbing. Tip will be well deserved

Cor wrote: Remember..  What's the difference between a guide and a large pizza?  
A large pizza can feed a family of four.  Please tip the guides..

We talking Little Ceasers or California Pizza Kitchen?

Waiting for some other guides to chime in..

Not ate a ton of guides but the ones I have did taste better than little caesars pizza.