Operational intelligence for guide companies.
For those who cannot afford to learn slow.
Ascents centralises, automates, and operationalises what currently lives in your head.
Built on special operations doctrine. Scalable from a day at the crag to a multi-week expedition.
Built with the guide companies who shape it.
The operational reality
These are the problems every guide company owner carries.
- 01
Institutional knowledge walks out the door.
When your most experienced guide leaves, everything they know about every route goes with them. The next guide learns it the hard way.
- 02
Kit and equipment has no system.
Three trips this weekend. No view of what's committed, what's been inspected, or what's about to go to the wrong place.
- 03
Land management is a spreadsheet at best.
Permits change. Closures are added. Someone books a restricted route. You find out when the land manager calls.
- 04
No two guides plan the same way.
The quality of a risk assessment depends on who wrote it that day. There is no consistent standard.
- 05
Near-misses don't change anything.
It gets logged. Six months later, a different guide on the same route has no idea it happened.
- 06
Environmental compliance is a number nobody tracks.
No way to measure impact by area, guide, or season. No answer when a land manager asks.
- 07
The owner is the bottleneck.
Quality and safety scale only as far as what you can personally see and touch.
What Ascents does
One platform. Everything in one place.
- 01
Institutional knowledge library
Routes, hazards, lessons, and beta — bound to terrain. Stays when guides leave.
- 02
Standardised planning methodology
Nine phases, every guide, every trip. Consistent from a sport climb to a month-long expedition.
- 03
Risk and hazard analysis
Factor, implication, action. Populates kit list, contingency plan, and field brief automatically.
- 04
Land management compliance
Permits, closures, and restrictions flagged at planning — not at departure.
- 05
Environmental impact scoring
Per trip, per guide, per area, per season. Trend data for land managers.
- 06
Kit and equipment tracking
Committed gear visible across all active trips. Conflicts surface before departure.
- 07
Automated lessons learned
Near-misses linked to the route and hazard where they happened. Future guides see what happened there.
- 08
Live operational tracking
Every guide, every phase, every check-in — on the owner dashboard in real time.
- 09
Scope of practice compliance
Certification requirements matched to guide qualifications at planning.
- 10
Sign-off and governance
Immutable plans, configurable sign-off chain, timestamped record of every decision.
The doctrine
Run your guide company like a special operation.
The planning methodology in Ascents is adapted from the Military Decision-Making Process and SMEAC briefing doctrine — the analytical frameworks used by special operations units and mountain rescue teams for high-consequence decisions.
The same rigour that keeps those organisations operating at altitude and under pressure, without the bureaucracy.
Built for guiding.
The library compounds.
Every trip binds what was learned to where it was learned. The next guide on that route starts from what the last one knew.
Partner programme
Building with the companies who shape it.
We are pre-launch, building Ascents with a small number of guide company partners who want to work directly with us. Early partners shape the roadmap.
Built with IFMGA guides · Aligned with ISO 31000, ISO 45001, WorkSafe · Operational from day one
Framework alignment
Ascents is aligned with — not certified to — the regulatory and professional frameworks that govern mountain guide companies.
| Capability | WorkSafe | WorkSafe NZ | OSHA | ISO 21101 | ISO 45001 | ISO 31000 | ISO 9001 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Structured 10-step risk management workflow | |||||||
| Conditions monitoring — four timestamped timepoints | — | ||||||
| Hazard identification — structured library | — | ||||||
| Control selection — hierarchy of controls | — | ||||||
| Avalanche Safety Plan (ASP) export | — | — | |||||
| Client risk briefing record — waterfall evidence | — | — | — | ||||
| Training acknowledgment log | — | ||||||
| Documentation and policy panel | — | ||||||
| Auditor access panel | — | ||||||
| Immutable timestamped records — RLS enforcement | |||||||
| Client post-trip QA questionnaire | — | — | — | — |