Chamonix / Verbier based UIAGM Mountain Guides with a wide range of backcountry skiing and private guiding trips around the Mont Blanc region.
(63)
Route D'Emosson 4, Le Fregneré
Finhaut
1925
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When Edward Bekker (1961) in 1987 obtained his IFMGA / UIAGM guiding certificate, a nearly impossible dream became true. Ever since he observed as a 16-year-old youngster group of Swiss aspirant guides during their training at the Cabane de Trient while passing mountain holidays with his parents, the young Dutchman had only one thing in mind: becoming a certified mountain & skiguide. This seemed a nearly impossible objective, since never before a person not growing up in an Alpine country managed to pass the extremely difficult admission exams. But he did. He quit his physiotherapy study and started his mountain guiding training at the Technical University of Munich, becoming 5 years later the first certified Dutch mountain & skiguide ever.
By obtaining IFMGA/UIAGM certification, the first steps of Edward Bekker Ski & Alpinisme were made. At the beginning, the company was founded in collaboration with his friend Frans Vermeulen; later on Edward however decided that he preferred to make his own decisions. From the southern part of the Netherlands, where Edward grew up, he moved to Chamonix, where he founded together with his former partner Sylvia a French branch of the company. Mother Gody Bekker-Stronk, who initially helped her son setting up his own company, stayed active during over 25 years organising expeditions outside the Alps.
During almost two decades the company almost exclusively operated for the Dutch market, organising ski & mountaineering trips in collaboration with external hotels, lodges and huts. Edward Bekker Ski & Alpinisme, since 2017 called Bekker Mountaintravel, was the first introducing the almost legendary ski safaris for the Dutch and Flemish market and internationally introduced ‘Mont Blanc weeks’; all-in programs with training, acclimatisation and climbing Mont Blanc. Throughout the years, over 1,200 climbers have reached the summit of Mont Blanc on the safe rope of our qualified and experienced guides.
Running a growing company means spending a lot of time managing other people and running a business. During the mid 2000’s Edward realised that he did not spend as much time outside guiding as he would like to do. In the mean time, he split up with Sylvia, met his future wife Ilse in 2003, got married in 2005 and moved to Switzerland; the country where it all started as a youngster. The couple found a perfect plot of land in the little town of Finhaut-Emosson, strategically located between Chamonix and Verbier and built their own dream house: the Bekker Mountain Chalet. While Ilse at that time spent most of her time at the office, selling and organising trips for the guides and guests all over the Alps, she missed the direct contact with the guests. After building the chalet, things came into their place. Nowadays, Ilse runs the chalet where a large number of our guests stay during their ski & mountaineering trips in the Alps and spoils them with great food and her welcoming smile, while Edward has the chance to work every day outside with the guests and taking care of all the technical gear and vehicles and enjoying some sort of family life.
