After some time as an instructor, Rébuffat wanted to spend more time as a guide. He stated in his 1954 work Starlight and Storm: Each winter I found myself impatiently awaiting July. At last the day would come for departure to Ailefroide or Chamonix. There I would spend a few days on the tops, only to return and wait for another year. Then one day, deciding that I must live among the mountains, I became a guide. In 1945, Rébuffat left his position at the ENSA to become a mountain guide in the Alps. Throughout his career, he guided many climbers and mountaineers, both new and experienced, up the mountains of the Alps. By the 1950s he was known as one of the foremost experts on the Mont Blanc Massif in the Alps, where he had set several routes himself.