I moved to France and became a mountain guide

Jennifer Stretton, 35, from Birmingham in the UK, was living in York and working in marketing when she decided to move to France in 2015. Today, she works as an international mountain leader and has started a charity inspired by the environmental effects she has seen in the Alps. She lives in the village of Servoz, close to Chamonix. 

What inspired you to move to France?

I’d just broken up with my boyfriend and I thought I have got no ties now, I’m going to move to Chamonix. I saved up for two months, packed my bags and moved over.

Why did you choose the Alps? 

I went to the Alps on a climbing trip at university. I remember we travelled through the night in the minibus and then pitched our tents in the dark. The next morning, I will never forget stepping out of the tent and looking up at the mountains. I was blown away and said to myself, one day I want to live here.

Because I grew up in Birmingham, I had never been to the mountains, we would always go on holiday to the beach. 

Where I live now, I can see Mont Blanc from the balcony and every day when I wake up I feel the luckiest person alive. 

Were you nervous to make such a big move? 

A lot of people at the time said it was brave, but let’s be honest, if you don’t like it you can just move back. I didn’t have kids or a house. It’s so close I just gave it a try and it worked out. 

How did you get into mountain guiding?

When I first moved to France, I was a marketing manager working remotely. I felt really lonely working from the house on my own and I’m quite a sociable person. I met a lot of people who were working as guides, and I thought it sounded amazing. So I went part time and over two and a half years I retrained as an international mountain leader.

After that I started working as a hiking guide in the summer in the Alps and for the last couple of years in the winter I have been to Finland to work as a backcountry ski guide there. 

What did the training involve?

I did mountain training in Wales and the Alps. In Wales, we learned navigation in the daytime and nighttime, first aid, rescue scenarios, and about the local flora and fauna. 

In the Alps, it was similar – navigation, how to look after a group, some basic rope work to help people up tricky steps or to rescue someone. Because we can also operate in the Alps in winter, we had to learn a lot about avalanches and snowshoeing. 

You have to learn how to plot a route, where it is safe, how to do avalanche rescues, and dig emergency shelters. You learn everything you need to keep a group safe but also about the local customs so that you can educate people on the trail as well. 

Did it ever feel too difficult?

A lot of people who went through my qualification had an outdoor guiding background and I didn't, so I had imposter syndrome a lot of the time. I came from a totally different, more corporate world. Everyone was really nice, but I did think at times, should I have done something else first… But luckily the exams went really well and I passed them first time.

What does a typical day of guiding involve?

I normally have a group of 10-12 people. Around 90% of the people I guide are American. On a typical day, I’ll wake up in a hotel and have breakfast with my group. Then we’ll head out for the day, and probably hike from about nine in the morning to four in the evening. We’ll get in, and I’ll do the food shopping for the next day. I’ll brief my clients for the next day, we’ll have dinner and then I’ll go to bed. And then the next day we do it all over again. 

We will normally walk around 15 km with maybe 1,000 metres of ascent. Usually we will be walking from one village, up over a mountain and down into the next village. 

What do you love about the Alps?

I think it is how dramatic the mountains are and how lush the valley is – I just love the landscape: I love climbing, I love skiing, I love all of it. I also love that it’s just so safe as well. As a woman I appreciate that I can go hiking and running on my own and I never worry. Growing up in Birmingham, I would never really wander about on my own very much, but I just have a real sense of freedom here. 

Have you noticed any changes in the mountains since you moved?

Since I started guiding six or seven years ago, and even between this year and last year, I’ve noticed how much the glaciers have receded, you see it every single summer. We have also had horrendous floods in the Alps, so we are getting weird weather patterns. Some locals here say they have never seen anything like it in their lifetimes. 

I have also noticed the trails becoming a lot busier; there are lots more people coming here to hike, tourism is really exploding. And that causes problems – on the trails you get litter, toilet paper, erosion on the paths and it feels like certain hotspots of the Alps are suffering from overtourism now, especially since Covid. 

I make my living from it, but I think there are ways to be more responsible about tourism.

How can visitors to the Alps be more responsible?

I would like to see more people using public transport to get about. Switzerland is really good for that. The other thing I would like to see is people being more responsible on the trails – sticking to the footpath, not leaving litter, not using the bathroom where they feel like it.

There should also be more responsibly sized tour groups - these big bus loads of groups that go around tiny villages are really disruptive. Many swarm villages of only around 100 people just for an Instagram photo. 

How did seeing the environmental impact inspire you to set up your charity?

Many visitors come to the Alps by plane, and then they look at the glaciers and say how sad it is that the glacier is retreating. But flying is the worst thing you can do in terms of your own personal carbon footprint. It is one of the reasons I decided to set up my organisation, Mieux Donner. 

Quite a lot of my friends who are guides have left guiding now because they felt so guilty at the fact that their job is contributing to the glaciers receding and I was close to doing so for the same reason. 

The charity is focused on climate change, global health and development and animal welfare. We educate people about how they can make the most cost-effective donations to those three cause areas. We have collated research from the world’s top independent charity evaluators and use that research to present recommendations - so for example for climate change, we will recommend the charity that mitigates the most carbon. 

What kind of charities do you recommend?

Independent evaluators have shown that one of the charities that we recommend for climate change - Clean Air Task Force - can mitigate one tonne of carbon for just one dollar. So if you think about a flight from America to Europe and back, if someone wanted to “offset” that flight, it only costs them three dollars. And I think people are generally more willing to donate than they are to change their lifestyle. 

Many people dream of leaving their job to work in nature. Do you have any advice?

Someone once said to me that most decisions we make are based on either fear or excitement and I have always tried to make decisions based on excitement rather than fear. I think it’s often fear that holds people back. So I would just say to people think what is the worst that could happen and just try it.