Entries from Alaska Seminar

Today we launched for 747 Pass but were turned back halfway through our day due to 2-3ft of trail breaking. We are now back at camp and battening down the hatches for another round of weather! We’ve had the great pleasure of passing time with plenty of card games and a delicious dinner of Pad Thai. Tomorrow we plan to work on skills and wait until the weather breaks!

RMI Guide Sam Marjerison

Wednesday, May 6, 2026

Today started early with breakfast sandwiches and coffee from Conscious Coffee under rainy skies. With an increase in precipitation throughout the day, we focused our attention on a thorough gear check, a refresher on knots and hitches and a weigh in with all our kit at the K2 Aviation hanger. To cap off our skills day, we enjoyed a great meal at Latitude 62. Tomorrow, we hope to fly and are going to bed dreaming of sunny skies and low wind!

Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Today we met the team in Anchorage and drove to Talkeetna, excited for the next ten days of climbing together. After laying out our gear in the K2 Aviation hangar, we had a wonderful dinner at Mountain High Pizza. Glasses were clinked and food was eaten. Tomorrow, we plan to organize, sort and pack our gear in the morning before a "hopefully" quick takeoff out of Talkeetna and onto the Ruth Glacier. 

Explored the crevasses and hidden corners of the Ruth Gorge under a flawless blue sky—no clouds, just pure Alaskan magic. Spent the day weaving through ice and granite, soaking it all in. Came back tired, happy, and hungry. Wrapped it up with a late dinner and the kind of sleep that only comes after a hard day in the mountains.

RMI Guide Dan May & Team

Saturday, May 3, 2025 - 10:33 pm PT

First couple days were spent meeting up in Anchorage and shuttling our way to Talkeetna via the scenic drive toward the Alaska range. After arriving we quickly got to packing, sorting gear and setting ourselves up for when the weather would allow us to get into the range. Sadly today wasn't our day in that regard but time was still well spent. Rest, rope and camp skills were the name of the game to further put as at advantage once on the great Ruth Glacier. 

We are hopeful that tomorrow's weather will grant us passage into the amphitheater to begin our days amongst the peaks.

The RMI Guides Dan May & Joey Manship and the Ruth Gorge Team 

Alaska certainly had a theme for the team this year and it was snow. We did not awake to clear skies, but instead 4 inches of fresh snow and more coming down! Our hopes were dashed for a flight off the glacier first thing in the morning. The team spirits remained high as we spent the day talking about life and the fragility of horses all while devouring any and all bacon that was left. Eventually the skies got a little lighter, then a little blue even and before we knew it - it was a beautiful sunny afternoon in the Alaska Range. After another few hours of hurry up and wait, a big red Otter buzzed into our life to whisk us back to civilization. Out of mountain boots, into showers and one final meal at Denali Brewing and our trip is complete. It was a great trip, with far more fun and stories than fit in this blog, until next time...

RMI Guides Jack Delaney, Mike Bennett and The Team

Thursday, May 11, 2023 - 12:01 AM PT

Sorry for the delay of game blogoneers! Yesterday was so jammed packed and busy with doing nothing that I forgot to blog. We awoke at 6am with high hopes of starting our summit day but instead when we poked our heads outside it looked like we were inside of a marshmallow. The lighting was so flat that up was indistinguishable from down. Suffice it to say, those are not ideal conditions for going uphill and assessing unknown avalanche terrain from the bottom up. So we stayed put and waited, and waited, and waited… until around 1pm we got sunshine for a whole 20 minutes! Then back into the clouds.

The team had high spirits and we enjoyed our weather day as best we could with movies, podcasts, music and books. Today was a new day! The skies were clear and we had a long way to go ahead of us. We packed up camp and descended from 747 Pass in great time compared to what it took us to come up it. Clouds started to pour over from the next valley and soon we had an overcast sky above us. We made it back to our cache we had left behind two days prior and had a nice, leisurely lunch. Then we reshuffled all our gear to make use of the sleds again and started tromping up glacier. A vicious headwind and snow hampered our progress but only slightly as the team was strong and motived to make it back to the airstrip. After a grueling climb of the final glacial hill, we were back where we started. What seems like a life time was only a week ago. The team expertly and quickly assembled camp, downed a tasty meal of garlic siracha bacon Mac and cheese, and promptly fell asleep. A well deserved rest after a long and arduous day. Assuming the clouds clear by morning, we’ll be back in Talkeetna tomorrow!

Cheers,

RMI Guides Jack, Mike and the team

The team started the day with a simple, quick breakfast before disassembling camp and loading packs for our climb. We stripped all excess gear and built a cache that was buried and marked. We departed the empty camp around 10am and began our slow march toward 747 Pass. The snowpack remained thick and made for a slow progression as Jack and Mike swapped leads breaking trail. We crested the ridge around 5 pm under partly cloudy skies accompanied by a strong breeze coming through the gap. Camp was rapidly assembled and the team took refuge in their tents, relaxing and waiting for better weather. Dinner was simple and quick and the team relaxed the rest of the evening, preparing for our morning summit push.

Wish us luck!

RMI Guides Mike, Jack and the team.

Sunday, May 7, 2023, 10:01 pm PT

Be very quiet…we’re hunting for crevasses!

Today we took our skills out into the wild, to test ourselves against the Ruth Glacier. No we didn’t walk around until someone fell in, we instead wandered through the maze of crevasses looking for the perfect one to safely lower someone into and haul them out of. The intricacies and difficulties of crevasse rescue don’t fully translate practicing on flat ground. Our biggest challenge was finding a crevasse that wasn’t drifted full of snow from the last storm and subsequent winds. After a lot of weaving and winding through the broken edge of the Ruth we finally found one that was a little more open than the rest. We sent RMI guide Mike Bennet in as our guinea pig to see if the snow floor could be collapsed and our crevasse deepened. Surprisingly the snow floor was deep and solid, so we made due with the 25 feet of snow wall we had available. The team performed admirably and even dialed in a second crevasse rescue system known as the “Drop C”. By midafternoon the sky was blue and the sun was hot and the team had completed training. We spent the rest of the afternoon lounging and organizing 

for our move to high camp tomorrow!

Beunos noches,

RMI Guides Jack, Mike and the team

Saturday, May 6, 2023 - 10:07 pm PT

The team awoke to find a cloud formation had snuck into the valley during the night, leaving wet, overcast, and flurry like conditions. We gathered for coffee and some morning pancakes, then retreated to our tents to read and watch movies for the afternoon while we waited out the weather. The sky slowly broke and the precip let up enough for the team to work some skills training into the afternoon. We knocked out a quick refresher on arrest techniques and then a comprehensive crevasse rescue. The team took to it quick, running some drills around camp and dialing in their systems. We wrapped up the day with a nice dinner and some relaxing talk. Morale remains high and the team is stoked for the upcoming days of the expedition!

All the best,

RMI Guides Mike, Jack and the team.

It was a wee bit chilly overnight as the clear skies allowed all the heat to escape into outer space. So, we did what any responsible mountaineer would and we waited until the sun was directly upon us before leaving our tents. After a tasty breakfast of bagels, cream cheese, and salmon lox, we ourselves got locked and loaded, ready for glacier travel! After 6ish hours of a slightly less heinous trail breaking through deep snow we arrived at our new campsite.

Our camp is in the middle of two mountain saddles, perfectly situated to catch maximum early morning and late evening sunshine. The rest of the day was consumed by building camp and consuming burritos. We got to bed under overcast skies and were excited to see what tomorrow will bring!

Cheerio,

RMI Guides Jack, Mike and the Ruth Team