Video Interview Adventure Consultants Guy Cotter
If you follow mountaineering, Adventure Consultants is one of the names that evoke almost three decades of memories. Guy Cotter, who began running the company in the mid-1990s, has deftly led his team through years of climbs worldwide. But in 2010, COVID was too much, and Guy made the difficult decision to put AC into ‘hibernation.’ Now, in 2022, he is ready to resume operations, smaller, leaner, and with an increased focus on running high-quality expeditions with discerning clients.
In this interview, I talk with Guy about his decisions with AC over the past few years and where he wants to take the company. We also delve into this new world of climbers’ linking multiple 8000-meter peaks in a single season, the record crowds on K2, and the discussion in the mountaineering community around the validity of claiming summits, especially on the fourteen 8000-meter peaks.
Guy is uniquely qualified to discuss these topics. I hope you enjoy our chat.
Everest 2017: Adventure Consultant’s Guy Cotter on ‘Fixing Everest’
As the guiding universe explodes with seemingly anybody and everybody jumping in, there are a handful of global companies that simply take care of business year in, year out and Adventure Consultants is one of the best. For close to two decades, Guy Cotter has been running the company with a strong philosophy of keeping it small and safe. Guy is not a figurehead but a true mountaineer. He has summited Everest four times as well as many other 8000 meter peaks and is returning for another attempt on Dhaulagiri this year while another AC team climbs Everest. I climbed with Guy or his team three times: Ama Dablam, and Everest twice. An Adventure Consultants expedition is well run with a loyal team of world-class Sherpas. Guy prides himself on not competing on price but rather charging what is needed to ensure personal attention to each of his members. He notes there has not been a price increase on Everest in 20 years! Guy, a native Kiwi, lives on the South Island of New Zealand in the amazing town of Wanaka on the shores of Lake Wanaka. He takes total advantage of everything his country offers from climbing to skiing to mountain biking. Adventure Consultants supports multiple industries of New Zealand by being part of world-class movies and running guided trips to their pristine mountains and ski slopes. Guy recently penned an article for the AC Blog entitled “Fixing Everest“. He has seen it all from tragedies, to avalanches, earthquakes to wonderful summits and helping members achieve their dreams. But he knows the Everest scene could be improved. Please read the entire post but some of the points he makes include: Open the Icefall earlier than in previous years to stretch the available summit windows. This will address crowds in one manner. Use helicopters to ferry gear into the Western Cwm, eliminating Sherpa loads thru the Icefall Address the epidemic of inexperienced climbers on Everest on low-cost, understaffed operators The last time I interviewed Guy was in 2013, so I thought it was about time to ask him to update us on Adventure Consultants and his thoughts on Everest. Here’s Guy: Q: Adventure Consultants seems to be doing quite well these days with New Zealand trips, International and supporting films. Congratulations. This must have been a bit of a challenge to diversify when other guides seem to be focused on only guiding the big mountains. Has this been part of a strategy? GC: Yes it’s always been a strategy to expand the foundation of the company and not merely rely on Everest and the other big peaks. This has been driven by a desire to offer a greater variety of exciting and fulfilling adventures to our customer base so there is something fulfilling to do after Everest! And if I’m going to be entirely honest it is also because I have a real desire for new destinations where I can spend time getting to know how to operate in a new area or environment. With the amount of operators out there I was very aware we needed to expand the costs of our administration base to keep pricing down and that’s why the price for our Everest expedition has not increased since 1993! Q: Guy, you were a consultant on 2015 Everest movie, loosely based on “Into Thin Air”. What was your reaction after seeing the final version? GC: I think they did a very good job on that film and I think the main reason was that they left everybody with their integrity intact and made it a story about the power of the mountains as opposed to picking up on every contentious issue that came out of those events and cramming them into a movie. I thought the visual effects were extremely well done too. I have worked on quite a few mountain films but I’ve never worked with a group of actors like this who were so engaged in doing justice to their characters. There were regular disagreements between them and the director about whether their character should say this, or do that, and I thought they were incredibly professional and I have a great deal of respect for all of them. Q: Were you pleased with how Sam Worthington portrayed you? Did you give him any hints? 🙂 GC: I actually had very little to do with Sam Worthington as he came in right near the end of the shoot and my role was minor compared to the rest. It’d pretty hard to say whether someone is portraying you well but I think he did a good job of it. When I saw one of the scenes being played out of all the climbers coming off the hill to base camp it sent a few chills down my spine as I had spent the previous 20 years moving on from those events. Q: You recently published an article on “Fixing Everest”. I thought you made excellent points but the obstacle seems to be the Nepal Government. Can you talk about what you think it will take to implement the changes you recommend? GC: I think that those of us who have a stake in Everest and care about it need to have an ongoing conversation about what direction we collectively need to take there. Everest represents so much more than just a geographical high point and all mountaineers feel a connection to it. I believe we owe it to mountaineering to manage the resource better so it doesn’t become a freak show (some will argue it already has) and of course we need to have the Nepalese government supporting positive change. Whether that can happen without their usual knee jerk random decision making that is driven by spin as opposed to good management remains to be seen but first we need to develop workable strategies between the people who work and play on the mountain. Some of the changes I suggested are already being implemented. The SPCC has instructed the icefall
Everest 2013: Interview with Guy Cotter – Boss and Climber
This interview with Guy Cotter is one of an ongoing series I do each season with Everest climbers. In addition to the regular climbers, the world’s leading guides occasionally pause to answer my questions. I welcome suggestions for anyone climbing in 2013 I should interview. Now here’s Guy: There are a handful of companies that professionally guide the world’s mountains year in, year out. Adventure Consultants is one of the in the world running trips to every corner of the globe and has for over two decades. Guy Cotter has been running the company since 1996 with a strong philosophy of keeping it small, and safe. But he is not a behind the scenes boss, but rather climbing with the of them, including Peter Hillary recently. I climbed with Guy or his team three times: Ama Dablam, and Everest twice. An Adventure Consultants expedition is well run with a team of Sherpas who have seen it all. Guy prides himself on not competing on price but rather charging what is needed to ensure personal attention to each of his members. Guy, a native Kiwi, lives on the South Island of New Zealand in the amazing town of Wanaka on the shores of Lake Wanaka. He takes total advantage of everything his country offers from climbing to skiing to mountain biking. As the owner of Adventure Consultants, his company supports the of New Zealand by being part of world-class movies, and running guided trips to their pristine mountains and ski slopes. I caught up with Guy just as he was leaving for Nepal to lead the 2013 Adventure Consultants Lhotse and Everest teams. Q: Adventure Consultants just moved into a large headquarters in Wanaka New Zealand. Business must be good! Tell us about the new place. The building we’d been in was getting too small so we renovated a nice old building right near the centre of our small alpine town called Wanaka. Wanaka is close to Mt Aspiring and has heaps of outdoor activities close by and really good weather so it’s a natural hub for climbers. The building has excellent views across Lake Wanaka and the surrounding mountains. It’s nice to have the additonal space of the bigger building. One benefit of the new location is that the staff get better views of our local ski hill meaning that on a good looking ski day the office might be empty! Q: Peter Hillary came to your grand opening. I understand both your fathers climbed together. I guess it was more history in the making with you and Peter together and climbing again? Both Peters father and mine were climbing together in the early 1950’s and were on an expedition together to a peak in the Garwhal called Mukat Parbat (7135m). After the ascent two members were invited by Shipton to join the Everest reconnaissance but my dad was too broke to join so didn’t get to go that one. The rest is history! Peter and I decided it’d be nice to get back in the hills as he was coming down to help us open our new premises so we took the time to climb of Mt Aspiring, a classic peak near Wanaka. We had a great catch up as it’d been a while since we’d been in the hills together. Q: You continue to be an active mountaineer as the owner of Adventure Consultants. Why is this important to you Guy? I got into this game because I love climbing. Guiding became a natural extension of my climbing and has provided me with a fantastic lifestyle. When I was a young climber I figured I knew what I was doing but it wasn’t until I started guiding that I realised how much I still had to learn! So I figure guiding has helped me evolve as a mountaineer at the same time as enabling me to go to some amazing places and get to know some great people. I think one of the main benefits I get from mountaineering is the relationships we develop with people by sharing experiences. Q: At this point you have summited 5 of the 8000m mountains (Everest (4x), Manaslu, Cho Oyu, Makalu, and Gasherbrum II ) and climbed on two others (Dhaulagiri and Gasherbrum I). Any plans to do all 14? I’m not focusing on doing all the 8k mountains. It may end up happening by default as I enjoy getting away on expeditions to 8k peaks and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future but I’m also doing lots of other neat trips too that I really enjoy. For instance I ran another horsetrek to Mustang in Nepal this year with a group of members I’m very friendly with and that style of trip inspires me too. I also want to try to find time to do more technical climbing as I got out of shape when I had knee issues that required surgery so I’m slowly dragging myself back to some semblance of technical climbing fitness! Q: You are climbing Lhotse this year and being both guide and climber as part of your Everest 2013 team. How is your overall season shaping up thus far? We’ve got a good solid team for Everest this year and a nice small group for Lhotse. I’ve always maintained that small groups are the way forward for expeditioning to reduce impacts and enhance the experience. During the recession it was interesting to see prospective members shift towards the large impersonal groups because they are cheaper, but we’re now seeing people want more than that again now. From a business perspective I’d be better to steer AC towards running large groups with fewer guides as it’d be a way to make some margins but my philosophy has always been towards doing it properly, even if that means we have very small margins. If we run great trips for our members and provide employment for our team of guides/Sherpas/admin staff then I’m happy. Q: