Marco Gaiani

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT MARCO GAIANI

A PASSION FOR THE WILDERNESS Marco spent part of his childhood in Algeria, at the edge of the Sahara desert. Exposure to this powerful land is certainly what shaped his love for wilderness and the wide open spaces. It was also in this land, edged by the Mediterranean, that he encountered the sea and free-diving. Returning to France as a teenager meant adapting to a completely different life, and that was when he turned to the mountains. He cut his teeth in the Pyrenees before going to the Alps for his national service at the French national mountain warfare school, the École Militaire de Haute Montagne (EMHM) in Chamonix in 1991. He soon decided to get trained for the top Alpine guiding qualification, the guide de haute-montagne, and in 1996 he obtained this coveted award from the French national ski and mountaineering school, the École Nationale de Ski et d’Alpinisme (ENSA) in Chamonix. He became a member of the famous mountain guides\' association, the Compagnie des Guides de Chamonix, which is the oldest and largest such association in the world, and a benchmark for all lovers of the mountains. His quest for new experiences led him to pursue many aspects of his profession: trainer for the rescue association Chamoniarde de Secours (a non-profit association that promotes the development of mountain safety and knowledge of the Alpine environment); teacher at ENSA (the only establishment entitled to train future mountain professionals such as high-mountain guides, mid-mountain guides and ski instructors; and technical supervisor and safety consultant for the organisation of freeride competitions and films. Rather than rest on his laurels, his love for the new and unknown led him to explore a new playground in 2004: the Kamchatka peninsula, a stunning region located in the far east of Russia. Touched to the heart by the magic of Kamchatka, which he explored alongside his friend Nikolay Veselovskiy, he sought a way to spend several months of the winter there. In January 2005 he set up Heliski Russia, which became the top French agency offering package stays in Russia, the result of a collaboration with Nikolay Veselovskiy of the Vertikalny Mir agency. His career path and his solid experience as a guide enabled him to take on the technical management of the heliski bases for Kamchatka, for the Caucasus and more recently for Baikal. He structured the operation of the bases by putting in place processes to ensure professionalism and quality for visitors\' stays.