Guide Initiative Program

Are you a skilled outdoor leader with a desire to work in polar environments and work towards leading expeditions? The Guide Initiative Program will drill in to the necessary hard skills to safely work in the winter environment. It will also focus on the value of soft skills; the skills of working with people in the role of a guide.  Creating a solid base for your growth as a guide, this is an opportunity to enter the polar scene.  Delivered by a team of highly skilled specialists with a commitment to quality and positive growth in this industry, our aim is to give you a rich and meaningful development experience. 

Operating in Finse, Norway and led by George MacHardy, Denise Martin, and guest mentors Richard Smith and others,  we will run this course at cost. We are committed to helping create a healthy and skilled team of next generation polar guides, investing in the future through offering what we can. 

Dates - February 15-22, 2026  FULLY BOOKED

Cost - £1100 

Skill level - For intermediate to experienced outdoor guides with little or no polar experience with a desire to work hard to develop more skills. Fitness must be at a good to excellent level with the ability to ski with a 20 kg pulk for a minimum for 6 hrs at -15C and winter camp at -20C

Included - Highly experienced polar guide team, sleeping bags and expedition equipment, pulks and harnesses. Accommodation in a shared house

Not included: Travel to and from Finse, expedition food, skis and boots, personal winter expedition clothing

George MacHardy   

George is a warm teddy bear of a man with the instincts of a hard core sniper. Polar Guides is fortunate to have George on board in developing and leading on this initiative. 

A native to Scotland, George has preferred being outside his entire life. A former Sergeant with the Royal Marines, he specialised as a Mountain Leader and accrued a decade of experience planning and running training exercises, and leading operations in mountainous and cold weather environments around the world.

Carving out a successful career as a freelance mountaineer, George is a certified wilderness medic, a qualified Winter & Summer Mountain Leader, a Rock Climbing Instructor and a Nordic Ski Coach.

A real advocate for the physical and cerebral benefits of the great outdoors, George has a genuine passion for supporting people who wish to venture out of their comfort zones. He’s a real confidence builder, and holds the ability to effectively share knowledge and identify where individual’s skill sets can be honed, in order to safely explore the wilderness. 

Denise Martin - on the 'about us' page

Richard Smith 

 Guest Mentor. We are fortunate to have Richard join this inaugural program. His wealth of experience working in extreme conditions , in extreme settings with absolute attention to detail, describes this natural leader. A fantastic person to travel with and a teacher to the core.

Richard Smith, PhD, studied as an astrophysicist, moved into Information Technology and served with the Royal Marines Reserve and the Special Boat Service. Having brushed shoulders with cancer in 2000 and 2005, he made a couple of re calculations on the track his life was heading, and decided to jump the corporate ‘rat race’ ship he was at that time sailing, and disappeared around the world for half a year to have a ‘wee’ think about what to do next.