Top Ten Reasons to Hire an AMGA Certified Rock Guide
(from the American Mountain Guide Association, AMGA website)
1. AMGA certified guides have received the highest international standard of training and certification for professional mountain guides.
2. AMGA certified guides are dedicated to excellence in their profession.
3. Most certified guides are career guides who work 200 or more days a year, nationally and internationally, in an array of disciplines. Mountain guiding is their lifelong profession.
4. AMGA certified guides represent the highest echelon of US guides.
5. Professionalism is unrivaled. AMGA guides are familiar with a wide array of techniques and are some of the most experienced guides in the country.
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AMGA guides have a diversity of experience and have incredible backgrounds of personal climbing endeavors.
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AMGA guides are trained thoroughly and have a continually updated knowledge of guiding skills.
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AMGA guides have a keen awareness of minimal impact climbing, camping, and traveling techniques.
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You are in the best possible hands with an AMGA certified guide who knows that getting up is just as important as getting down and that inspiring confidence will help get the best performance out of their partners.
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They are the best at what they do.
Rand Judycki AMGA Certified Rock Guide for over 20 years- Owner and Head Guide – Central Texas Climbing Committee Board Member
AMGA Certified Rock Guide FOR OVER 20 YEARS SOLO Wilderness First Responder and First Aid Inst. Leave No Trace (LNT) Master Educator
Randy was born in Illinois, and soon realized he needed to move to the mountains to climb, ski, and whitewater kayak. So he packed his pack and moved to Arizona where he attended Prescott College received a Bachelor of Science degree in Outdoor Education. The Southwest and West are where he cut his teeth climbing at Granite Mountain, Joshua Tree National Park, Yosemite, and many other places. After graduation, he traveled to Scotland and Europe to climb ice in Scotland and ski in Europe.
Once he returned from Europe, he received a job with a school in California where he started a nationally recognized Outdoor Leadership program for sixth to twelfth-grade students. While at the school, he pursued his certification to become an American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA) Rock Guide certification and an ACA Level 5 Whitewater Kayak instructor. For many years he would travel to climb rock, ice, and mountains as well as paddled in Canada, Peru, Mexico, Europe, and throughout the United States.
He has also pursued his certification to become a SOLO Wilderness First Responder and a Wilderness First Aid instructor; teaching classes to scout leaders, scouts, climbing guides, and all types of outdoor and indoor enthusiasts.
His teaching approach heavily favors hands-on, scenario-based practice taught in a wilderness setting. We pride ourselves on the dynamic delivery of course curriculum using innovative educational techniques and integrative scenarios. We strive to deliver professional courses that are rich in quality, consistency, and effectiveness while still having fun “in the classroom.”
Recently Randy is a new Board Member for the Central Texas Climbing Committee which manages anchors, fixed protection, and new route development at Enchanted Rock State Park.
What he most enjoys doing is sharing his knowledge of all disciplines of climbing with his clients. In 2013, he moved to Austin with his wife and daughter so his wife could pursue her dream job and he started Austin Ascents.
Tom Reed – Certified AMGA Single Pitch Instructor and SOLO WFA certified
Tom was born in Kansas City and grew up in the flatlands of Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa.
He fell in love with the mountains at the age of 13 after a family vacation in RMNP. He enjoyed the mountains for many years as a backpacker and resort skier. Much later in life when his youngest son was 15, Tom got exposed to rock climbing through his son and got hooked. Fourteen years later and lots of climbing adventures across the US and western Europe, Tom’s an AMGA SPI guide, and his youngest son Dylan is guiding alpine climbing with Exum in Jackson, WY, and preparing for his AMGA Rock Guide exam and advancing through his Alpine guiding courses.
Tom lives with his wife Lisa in the hill country west of Austin, still working in the tech industry, and helping out with the family winery. He climbs regularly at Reimer’s and Erock and a couple of trips a year to the Eastern Sierras, Tetons, and Front range of CO to enjoy Alpine multi-pitch, ice, and backcountry skiing.