Rita Christen: Swiss mountain guide and pioneer

Rita, you work as a mountain guide, lawyer and yoga teacher. Have you always been this versatile?
Rita Christen: Yes, even as a child I needed variety and challenge, physically and intellectually. My hobbies included athletics, football, skiing – from an early age I would go out with my father in Alpine terrain in the Alpstein. But I had also already read almost the entire school library in the sixth year of primary school. As a teenager and as a young woman, I also developed a passion for travelling.

What were your most formative trips?
Rita Christen: The ones where I put myself at risk. For example, alone as a young woman away from the tourist crowds in North Africa. Or alone in the wilderness of Alaska with a tent. I was naive, and I didn’t want to be constrained. Out of defiance, I would go to the dangerous neighbourhoods, in New York for example.

A search for adventure?
Rita Christen: Yes. I graduated well from school and law school. At the same time, I was breaking free, looking for alternative ways of life.

You’ve even studied alternative ways of life from an academic perspective.
Rita Christen: I was very frustrated with our patriarchal, capitalist and consumerist society. For my dissertation in philosophy of law, I wanted to find out what we can learn from the First Nations’ approach to nature. I spent a summer in Vermont with a Cherokee tribe, an indigenous people of North America, where I lived with people of different backgrounds following Cherokee traditions. The simple life in a tent in the woods and the shamanic rituals appealed to me, but the lengthy discussions before each decision, the personality cult around the tribal leader and the esoteric aspect did not appeal to me in the long run. When I realised that my motivation was actually my personal search for meaning, I gave up the dissertation.

As a free spirit, why did you choose law?
Rita Christen: I wanted to go into development cooperation or diplomacy. But then I met my husband Martin Kreiliger. At that time, he had just set up a forest ecology centre in Disentis and I decided to live with him. So there I was, a lawyer in a small town in Graubünden, and I started a legal internship in Chur. When I found I didn’t like that, I started working as a court clerk at the cantonal high court. I still do that today. Full-time it would have been too monotonous for me and so I had the idea of becoming a mountain guide.

At that time, you had little experience in mountain sports yourself.
Rita Christen: Yes, to be honest, I was a beginner. I climbed a bit, but I hadn’t done many skiing or Alpine tours yet. During my training, I often thought: wow, this is wild. Of course, I am aware of how presumptuous it was to start the training with so little experience. But I felt it was an additional challenge. And, of course, Martin and I trained a lot.

Don’t you need a healthy portfolio of completed tours for the application?
Rita Christen: These days that’s true. You can only begin mountain guide training if you can demonstrate you have undertaken many demanding tours in all mountain sports disciplines. I think that’s as it should be. At that time, for me, the requirements were less formal.

Has the training also changed since then?
Rita Christen: Yes, because mountain sports have changed. New disciplines such as ice climbing have arrived, sport climbing has become more important and avalanche science has developed considerably. There are also new challenges, such as the consequences of climate change.

How hard is the training?
Rita Christen: The requirements are very high. At the entrance evaluation, there are usually 60 people, and three years later at the graduation ceremony only about half that number. I myself found it hard at the time, especially in terms of the physical challenge. I am small and rather light and often had to give everything I had to keep up with the constantly high pace.

Is your height also a disadvantage when you’re being a guide?
Rita Christen: As a mountain guide, I usually have a relatively heavy backpack. In relation to my body weight, it is much heavier than for a taller colleague. And short roping is a problem when the client is significantly heavier than the guide. I have to clip on to fixed points more. That’s why I sometimes pass on requests for demanding Alpine tours to my colleagues. I rarely do Alpine tours these days anyway and instead focus on my favourite disciplines: descent-oriented ski touring and Alpine sport climbing.

At the time, you were the tenth female mountain guide in Switzerland. Did you miss having role models?
Rita Christen: No, on the contrary. It was an incentive for me to help break open a male domain. While some women in the mountain guide training programme felt discriminated against, I felt supported. Maybe I just don’t notice negative comments or don’t let them get to me.

You have been the first woman president of the Swiss Mountain Guides Association (SBV) since 2020, and in autumn you will be the first woman to become president of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Association (IFMGA). Are you the leading female face of the sector?
Rita Christen: Not the only one, there are several prominent women mountain guides. Following my election as president of the SBV, there was an astonishingly broad response, and gender was certainly a key issue of my presidency. I wanted women to find more recognition in mountaineering – even if I always had to tell the same stories.

The proportion of women among Swiss mountain guides – 47 out of 1,207 – is still very low, but in 2025 one-fifth of graduates were women. Is that because of you?
Rita Christen: No, that’s coincidence. This year, not a single woman is going to graduate. On average, there have been 1.3 women per year in Switzerland since Nicole Niquille was the first to do it in 1986.

To start with, you spoke out against programmes for advancing women. It is now part of the association’s strategy. Did the men overrule you?
Rita Christen: My initial concern was that special advancement would worsen the position of women. Because support makes them look weaker. I didn’t like that. However, we know from a survey that some women did not always feel comfortable in the mountain guide training programme. We are trying to change that. When the training managers then raised the issue of the advancement of women for our 2025 to 2029 strategy, I was happy to agree.

How is it looking generally for the next generation of mountain guides?
Rita Christen: After a slump, the job is currently becoming more attractive again. Particularly if you are young with no commitments, you can earn good money in an interesting way as a mountain guide. You can also easily combine being a guide with another job: 75% do it part-time. The fact that mountaineering is booming also helps.

How do you manage to balance all your activities?
Rita Christen: That’s not a problem. As a freelancer, I’m free to organise my court work as I wish, and in my work for the SBV I’m quite flexible. As a mountain guide, I only spend around 30 days a year out on tours. And my two sons are grown up. It used to be harder. When I first had my kids, we hired domestic help. She quickly became like a second mother to the boys. When I was on a week of touring, they lived with her.

In spite of your unconventional biography, you hold some prestigious roles.
Rita Christen: I wasn’t looking for these roles. A lot has come out of the combination of law and working as a mountain guide. The request for me to take up the SBV presidency came just as my boys moved away to study. As President of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA), I am taking a step up to the international level, which has always interested me.

Do you sometimes have to fit a particular mould?
Rita Christen: I do representation my way. I never wear a traditional mountain guide uniform and I enjoy representing an unconventional type of mountain guide – not only as a woman, but also as more of a city person, as an academic who goes to techno parties.

Politically, you’re at the left-green end of the spectrum. Does that cause friction?
Rita Christen: When it comes to the environment, I am often outvoted on the central board. Heliskiing, for example, is not environmentally acceptable as I see it. The same goes for guiding tours with Swiss clients in faraway countries: ski touring on the Lofoten, climbing in Thailand. Of course it’s appealing, but in my view the carbon footprint is much too large. I would have liked to have been more active in this area.

Don’t nature and climate protection play a role in the SBV?
Rita Christen: In contrast to the Swiss Alpine Club, we are resolutely apolitical and do not participate in the fundamental debates on nature and climate protection. When it comes to mountain sports, however, our strategy envisages a climate-friendly and natural approach.

Do you forgo long-distance travel yourself?
Rita Christen: I live by the principle of ‘adventure on my own doorstep’. To this end, I am also very happy working with Martin to develop new climbing routes in the region.

Do you deal with risk differently for yourself and as a guide?
Rita Christen: Yes, very much. For myself, I accept more risk. On guided tours, on the other hand, I take quite a defensive approach.

Cliché question: did your attitude toward risk change when you became a mother?
Rita Christen: Not if I was alone or with colleagues. But when the kids were small, I didn’t want to do anything potentially dangerous with my husband Martin. If something had happened to both of us...

Have you had any accidents in the mountains?
Rita Christen: Several colleagues have died over the years, and my husband has also had serious accidents. I never have myself, either with clients or privately. But there have been tricky situations. The legal and moral responsibility when accidents occur has long preoccupied me in my work. Risk is part of mountaineering, and you can’t turn a blind eye to it. With good risk management, however, it can be reduced to an acceptable level. I am committed to ensuring that society tolerates a reasonable level of risk. As humans, we face challenges and overcome them – and that’s how we grow as people.