Ryan DeLena’s Path from VTSU OELT Student to Outdoor Leader & Filmmaker
Hands-on learning opportunities helped Ryan thrive in the OELT program
Finding his fit in the Outdoor Education, Leadership, & Tourism Program
Ryan DeLena lives in a converted van, spending his winters in the Mount Washington valley and the other three seasons in Acadia. His love of the outdoors started early and he’s been an avid skier and rock climber for most of his life. Being cooped up, he says, is not his thing. So much so that he wasn’t sure he even wanted to go to college. But a teacher who had done an outdoor education program themselves encouraged him, and Ryan started looking into it.
He looked at a college in NH, then visited VTSU. “When I got to VTSU, everyone was so encouraging and enthusiastic,” he shared. “They were real about the kind of hands-on education I would get here, and I was sold. I actually applied that night.”
Ryan started at VTSU in 2019 in the Outdoor Education, Leadership, and Tourism program (OELT). He noticed immediately that every single person he met was committed in the same way he was to bettering themselves as a guide and an educator. His experience on his college visit held true, and he immersed himself in the program.
“If you’re someone who likes to do outdoor things and you’d like to become a professional, the program does a really good job teaching you how to plan to take care of other people in the backcountry,” he said. “How to lead, understand group dynamics and how that can play out on your trips is all important knowledge.”
Ryan started on the Johnson campus, but when VTSU unified, the OELT program switched over to the Lyndon campus. While he said it was a little scary to transition campuses, especially during COVID, he embraced the perks of being closer to the White Mountains and all they have to offer.
“This is the kind of program where people do things in their time off,” he shared. “It really emphasized understanding the psychology of why adventure helps people and teaches us as leaders how to facilitate that growth in your trips.”
Hands-on experiential learning had a lasting impact on Ryan
The faculty in the OELT program had a huge influence on Ryan as well. “Brad Moskowitz had a big impact on me,” he noted. “I didn’t know how to study the way I needed to be successful in the program, and he helped me apply my potential and figure out how to do well.” Ben Mirkin too. “He held us to a high professional standard and let us know if we weren’t meeting his expectations,” Ryan added. “But he’s doing it to help you better yourself in school and out of school because he cares.”
Ryan also embraced the classroom learning he had in the program, saying, “as much as I loved doing the hands-on advanced ice climbing and backcountry skiing, the one that really stands out is adventure ed theory. I connected the concepts I’d been feeling my whole life with actual scientific knowledge and understood why I feel the way I do, how it works, and how I can create a lasting impact on the people that I guide.”
The unique opportunity presented in the OELT immersion semester was a favorite of Ryan’s. His experience included one week of classroom planning, mapping out the route, needed supplies, and gear, and then one week in the field leading the excursion for three total excursions. The faculty take a backseat and the students are charged with implementation. Feedback is constant, but constructive, and students are challenged to grow and adapt throughout the trip. The three excursions are across different skill sets and mediums. Ryan’s included on and off-trail backpacking in Vermont and New Hampshire, trail navigation and off-trail camping, and a canoe trip through the Saranac Lake region of New York.
Ryan did everything he could to get the most out of his VTSU experience, and encourages current students to do the same. “You are closer than most people will ever get to be to the White Mountains and the Green Mountains,” he emphasized. “You’ll only benefit by strengthening your knowledge and technical skills with your peers. The more you put in, the more you’ll get out.” He graduated from VTSU in 2024 and has remained actively engaged in the outdoor community.
Parlaying his educational experiences into professional opportunities
VTSU’s OELT program was recently accredited by American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA), which means the program teaches to a recognized standard and graduates have the knowledge they need to test for AMGA certifications, required by many employers in the outdoor excursion and recreation industries. This accreditation applies retroactively to past program participants as well, and Ryan even did some of his certifications through VTSU. Every time he takes a course or gains a certification, he expands his opportunities through an expanded scope of practice.
Ryan works as an educator with Acadia Mountain Guides at their summer camps, which are the only rock climbing summer camps accredited by the AMGA. He needs his certifications to lead there. “These camps are special because of the AMGA accreditation,” he shared. “We teach all levels of rock climbing, and for the Rock Masters, the level of instruction needed is extremely high.” And, in addition to the technical skills Ryan learned in the OELT program, he leans on the people and leadership skills he gained. “It goes beyond being a guide to figuring out how to lead people and how to manage group dynamics,” he said.
Creating Ninety One
In the winters, he lives in the Mount Washington Valley doing ice guiding and creating YouTube content on his backcountry skiing adventures. Since college, he’d been working on skiing every route in the guidebook Presidential Skiing and documenting it via his social media platforms, where he’s known as Extreme Ryan. There are 91 routes that require extremely high technical knowledge, skill, and a serious commitment to ski. They also require specific weather and snowpack conditions, which can take years to occur.
A few years before finishing all 91 routes, Ryan approached a filmmaker about an idea to create a documentary on the project. “It was such a long shot because I couldn’t guarantee completion because some of these routes require once-in-a-decade conditions to ski them,” Ryan shared. But there was interest, and over a year, he and Mark Levy of Marc Studios developed the project together. Then, in 2025 “we had one of the most remarkable winters I’ve seen,” Ryan shared. He was able to finish the final seven routes and the documentary that winter.
Ryan shared his journey on his social media platforms, and received a lot of positive response across the outdoor recreation community. “The idea that I put myself out there like that, that was seen as really bold,” Ryan said. “Especially when there’s this ethos that you don’t brag about a route you haven’t done. But by putting myself out there, I got support from the community. People would send me pictures of conditions on some of the trails and encourage me to get out there. It would have taken me so much longer to complete all 91 if I hadn’t had that help and encouragement.”
The documentary, Ninety One, is currently showing at film festivals around the country. Ryan hopes it will be available for public viewing in the fall.
Publishing with his dad and cementing a passion for the outdoors
With his father Rob, Ryan also authored a memoir about his childhood and the freedom and renewed purpose that discovering his love of the outdoors gave him. The book, Without Restraint: How Skiing Saved my Son’s Life, was written while Ryan was in high school and edited the following summer. It was published in March 2023.
Ryan calls the experience of writing the book “cathartic”, noting that it was one way he found and developed his voice, which later led to more ideas like the creation of Ninety One. He’s found his calling in outdoor education and embraced his passion for sharing skiing, rock climbing, and ice climbing with others through a variety of mediums.
As for what’s next, he’s working toward his avalanche certification (PRO 1) this winter. As he says, when he expands his scope of practice, he expands the opportunities available to him.
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