Ryan DeLena, a Troubled Childhood Saved By Adventure

Ryan DeLena is currently studying at Northern Vermont University. He was pictured on the cover of Backcountry Ski Maps (2020) and has climbed and skied throughout the United States, and in Canada, Chile, Argentina, Svalbard, and Antarctica. Ryan is also a skilled rock climber and avid hiker. As a child, Ryan had difficulty controlling his emotions and was placed in therapeutic schools that relied on detrimental methods of behavior modification such as physical restraint. Nothing helped, from a team of doctors to heavy medication. Then in 2010, Ryan was voluntarily committed to a mental hospital for further evaluation. His parents Rob and Mary Beth were counseled to place me in a group home. They refused. Two years earlier, after an impulsive decision to take him skiing, his father discovered a different child than the version experts were so sure about. By his second day of skiing, Ryan was executing advanced runs, and with each conquest in the winters that followed, his father began to question the path laid by the professionals paid to judge Ryan. He later convinced Ryan's mother to fight the medical and educational complexes over Ryan's care and school placement, and together they fostered the freedom Ryan needed to pursue his dream of becoming a professional ski mountaineer. We talk about out-of-bounds skiing in Vermont, becoming an outdoor adventure guide, learning to ski, skiing in Antarctica, how skiing changed his life, theraputic schools with restraints, prescription drugs, the book he and his father wrote "Without Restraint," skiing in Big Sky, avoiding drugs and alcohol, breaking the law in search of adventure, and healthy outlets for the same, finding contentment, fear, bucket-list adventure destinations, and more. Show notes are at https://www.paultrammell.com/dream-chasers-and-eccentrics