Hi,
I'm planning to move to Chamonix next year. I'm an outdoor enthusiast and would love to work outdoors. I'd like to find out if there are any companies, which do also guided tours in the valley, rather than purely alpine, where a mountain guide qualification is not required. Or perhaps there are other outdoor jobs which do not ask for this certificate, or perhaps they offer an initial training that you can go through for meeting their standards.

The results of my research so far have shown that a mountain guide qualification was required with pretty much all trekking / touring companies. But I'm not giving up hope yet - I believe there must be opportunities to work outdoors (and I don't mean sweeping the streets, I just don't want to narrow it down too much, but some form of hiking/trekking/ perhaps touring assistant?) or enter the field of outdoor work at some lower level and then work your way up...? I have searched for such companies that are linked between the UK and France as this would be ideal, but again, the ones I found all asked for the IML award. By the way I speak French, it's rusty, but all the grammar is there, just a matter of coming up to speed.

Any local knowledge or experience or thoughts would be much appreciated :-)

Thanks a lot!