Sierra Mountain Center is California’s premier mountaineering school and guide service. Located in Bishop, California, we offer rock climbing, mountaineering, international mountaineering trips, ice climbing, backcountry skiing (nordic and alpine touring), backpacking, guide training, and mountain biking as well as year round instruction and guided ascents here in the Eastern Sierra of California.

We are one of the original providers of the American Mountain Guide’s Association Top Rope Site Manager’s Course. Instructor Todd Vogel has taught nearly 40 of these (as of 2004/fall) and is one of five people responsible for ongoing curriculum development in the program.

We are the Eastern Sierra experts – home to over a dozen fourteen thousand foot peaks, spectacular skiing, climbing, and mountaineering, the Eastern Sierra is our backyard and we’ve been living, working, and playing here for many years. For the Sierra Nevada range, and beyond, we are your best source professional mountain guiding and mountaineering instruction. All of our lead guides are certified by the American Mountain Guides Association, have extensive wilderness medical training and have broad experience climbing and guiding in the Sierra and around the world.

As of July 5, 2004 Sierra Mountain Center, LLC has become accredited by the American Mountain Guides Association. This makes us the only guide service in the area, and the second in California, to qualify for accredited status under the AMGA’s strict new accreditation standard which links certification with accreditation. We strongly urge you to consider AMGA certification and accreditation as important criteria when choosing a guide.