Icicle: Instructor Team and Course Hosts

Celebrating 24 years!

About us - guides \| key staff \| in-resort We are a small company, and our team is everything to us. The guides have total responsibility for all decisions taken on the mountain, to ensure your safey at all times. For more details on the guides qualifications, please click here. The list below shows most of the more familar faces who work often with Icicle, and we try and keep it up to date. It features IFMGA / UIMLA / Kilimanjaro / Nepal guides. Whilst we are fortunate to have an excellent mountain team, we also have a superb office team who arrange the logistics that make all the trips run smoothly.

	guide team	key staff	in-resort

Icicle core guiding team
If you have climbed with one of our guides before, you may wish too be led by a specific guide, then highlight this preference on your booking form. All our guide team are independent guides, who specialise in certain types of courses that they lead, be it Alpine climbing, technical ice, off piste, or trail running. To read more about the qualification process, expertise, and the level of guide / instructor who is leading your chosen trip or expedition, please click here.



Gilles F	Stefano DG	Rob G	Tomba PT	Lori BL	Fred D	Kingsley J



Tom S	Francis F	Teo C	David L	Mohammed M	Gio R	Evans K



Ervin V	Luca M	Stephane C	Julie B	Hallelujah	Manuel Q	Robert F

Supporting guide team



Jacques	Mauro	Marcos	Narayan	Alain	Stani	Meg	Christophe	Paolo	Laurence



Yannick	Francois	Jennifer	Yves	Craig	Franck	Filippo	Pascal	Francois	Pablo

Key staff, resort team, and course advisors

Office and logistics base

Accountable: Unlike some companies that are only exist virtually in cyberspace, we are staffed by real people, in a real office in the UK, who offer real honest advice. Because we are tangible, we are accountable, and we take great pride in that and the service that we offer you.

Approachable: We invite you to come in for a coffee to discuss your course in person. Many people opt for this service, and it is an integral part of what we offer, to ensure that you are prepared as possible, and that you select a course that is suitable for you. We can also advise on training and equipment. It makes it easier and more enjoyable for you and us, if you are on the right trip.

Knowledgeable: By now you’ll have got the idea that an integral part of booking, is the ability to get good knowledgeable advice, and a highly personal service. Some people do just book online, but we are there every step of the way to walk you from the initial enquiry, right through to your course, if you need. Anyway, time to put the coffee mugs out. Get in touch to come in for a chat soon!

Licensed: We are fully licenced as a tour operator, and have a wall full of certificates in the office to prove it (see here). These licenses and bonds are not there to stroke our egos or to make life easier for us. In fact to keep compliant for financial bonding is an administrative nightmare, but they are there to protect you, the client. Our licences protect you financially, and show the corporate standards that we are externally judged to have achieved.

Standards: It constantly never fails to amaze us how many operators are not properly licenced. All those who are, shout about it with pride, but there are quite a few who keep quiet on that front, while gambling with your unprotected money. Please be aware, and if you don't see licences and logos such as those below, then ASK!

Operations: Sarah's climbing has taken her from Siberia to the Atlas, the Andes to Tanzania. President of the university expeditions society, Sarah then worked briefly in recruitment before getting into climbing, and living and working in the mountains. She's run the Mont Blanc marathon, and loves snowshoeing & ski tours. Happiest mixing a mountain day with a visit to a mountain hut to get some coffee and cake!

Twitter: @IcicleLakesHQ

Logistics: Kingsley's love of the mountains started as a 5 year old, and he studied glaciology at uni. He's climbed the north faces of the Eiger, Matterhorn and Grands Jorasses. Qualifications range from UIMLA guide to Personal Trainer. Happiest running silly distances very slowly (170km UTMB twice & 330km Tor des Geants). He's written several outdoor guidebooks, and is a Lake District mountain rescue team member.

Twitter: @KingsleyJones / @IcicleUK

Windermere & In-Resort: We have a logistics team in the UK office and shop, and also in the Alps in the peak season. These people are the unsung heroes who do so much work that is unnoticed when they have done it well, and so we take this opportunity to sincerely thank them for their hard work for the benefit of us all. All staff love mountain sports outside work.

Rollcall of current and past staff and reps;
Beth, Dave, Rach, Jon, Rachel, Cat, Merle, Katy, Wendy, Adele, Josh, Maria, Jules, Suzanne, Jilly, Emma, Tanzi, Charlie, Donna.

Walk-time: If we stay in the office too long, or fail to provide biscuits or enough walks, we can rely on Luna the Border Collie to remind us of our duties. Her work ethic is very questionable indoors, but outside she often joins our groups fell and trail running! Don't practice avalanche transcievers near Luna, as she'll dig up the buried unit before you. In the office, her typing skills are questionable, despite the photo to the right!