Just being there and camping on this glacier felt like a special experience. The Ruth Gorge is the deepest gorge in North America if you count the 3,800' deep ice (that still seems like a mind boggling depth to me). The face of Mt Dickey soars more than 5,000' above the glacier! People always talk about scale and everything being "bigger and farther than it seems" in Alaska, and it may seem cliche, but it's true. The Ruth glacier is also 40 miles long...

We woke up to some showers in the morning, but then it got warmer and blue skies showed as we crawled out to make breakfast. It was actually sunny, which made us feel very lucky! When reading prior trip reports, some people spent 2 weeks in the gorge and didn't get a single good weather day... we were afraid this might be us, especially with the much shorter itinerary planned. We were pretty close to our first intended climb - Goldfinger on the Stump. It even came into the sun at noon! We kicked steps up the steep snow cone to the base and left our ski boots there, transitioning to rock climbing in tshirts! Well, at least for the first pitch we were in tshirts... an hour later it started drizzling when a cloud moved in. Then the sun came out again, and then we got a little hail and more clouds... but the climbing was truly awesome. Basically the whole first 1,000 feet you're climbing a continuous left facing corner... very aesthetic and sustained climbing. Each pitch is 200 feet too! After we climbed the 6th pitch we were getting into a cloud and it was starting to rain. We didn't really want to climb during a storm, so we made the difficult decision to go down. When we got to the ground it was sprinkling again... fickle weather! What an awesome experience though, even if we didn't make the summit!

The next day was much better weather, but we were a bit tired and didn't really want to re-climb those 1,200' so soon again :) There is a lot of 'cragging' to explore in the area however - just pick a crack that looks great and climb it! So that's just what we did. It was so liberating not to have a guidebook or much information, and just have to make our own judgments... with a set of nuts and some cord, rappelling down from unknown terrain isn't that daunting. It turned out there were slings on top of everything we climbed, anyway :) Two of the pitches we did were totally amazing 5-star splitters, stuff dreams are made of. Enough superlatives... but it's true! Then we went back to camp, made grilled cheese sandwiches, hung out and ate more. We were hoping to go down and do a longer climb the next day, so we went to bed early and slept well.

The weather in the morning was not encouraging - it rained a bit early in the morning, and was generally completely overcast - no sun for sure. However, we knew how quickly it changes - it could be sunny and beautiful a couple of hours later, who knows! As we were filling up our water bottles, the other guys camped higher up the glacier came back from their all day and all night adventure on the Eye Tooth... they got hit by the storm a couple of easy pitches from the summit, but pretty stoked to have climbed one of the plum routes of the Ruth (btw, their trip report is here). We chatted with them briefly, geared up and started skiing down the glacier towards Hut Tower, our next objective. It took forever, and the clouds were getting darker and darker. The glacier also got sloshy and we had to cross running streams of water (part of us being there in July... which is late season) - it was not fast going. By the time we reached Hut Tower the weather really didn't look good and we turned around. Soon after that, it started raining - good call to be heading back! By the time we got back to our tent, the fog had descended and we were in a white out with rain... great time to get in the tent! We watched Transformers 4 on my tablet and ate lots of food :)

It rained all day and at some point in the night, it got a lot colder - and switched to snow. Then it snowed all day on the second day. I had to go outside twice and shovel out the snow, as we were getting buried... we got about a foot of snow total. Of course there were no flights... we were supposed to fly out the next day and wondered how long the storm was going to hold. We checked the weather on the satellite phone, but that didn't tell us much. It later turned out the snow level was at 500 feet - that's a cold storm for July, alright!

Amazingly (and luckily), we woke up to blue bird skies, but it was very cold, felt about 10 degF / -10 C. Our alarm was set for 5:30am as we were hoping to make a 1pm pick-up time at the Mountain House. We made breakfast and packed up, which took a while. I had to cut one of the tent straps with a knife because it was frozen under several inches of solid ice... and I had no luck chopping it out after 10 minutes of trying. Everything was wet and frozen, not the most fun way to pack up - while the mountains were covered in warm sunshine, we were down in the cold shadows of the gorge. We were packed, sleds rigged and skiing at 8am, and we got to the pick-up spot at 12:45pm, completely exhausted. Breaking trail through the fresh powder was hard work! The foot of fresh snow also meant the small crevasses were now hidden - I was probing with my ski poles where I had suspicions, but still managed to find one and go thigh deep - oops.

Once at the pick-up spot (1,000 feet and nearly 5 hours later), we called TAT and it turned out we had to wait until 5:30pm to be picked up - so we lounged around taking pictures, eating, and just enjoying being in such an amazing place. Wow. The flight out was amazing... Will, our pilot, flew right next to Mt Barrill and we got to check out the 5.10 hand crack on the Cobra Pillar from up close... that's a good reason to do that climb, looks spectacular! Once in town, we went to the hostel, showered, and went to the West Rib pub for some well deserved greasy food and 'Ice Axe Ale', yummy!!!

In the morning, Melissa's uncle Randy came and picked us up from Talkeetna, we had a huge breakfast at The Roadhouse, then once in Anchorage we bbq'ed and headed down to Seward for a few days.

Next: Seward

	Loaded in the plane and ready to fly!	Flying! The little Cessna 185 was pretty packed with 250 lbs of gear and the 3 of us :) Paul, the TAT owner, was our pilot - cool!	Where the 3 rivers come together (and that's the meaning of the word Talkeetna)

		Flying toward the mountains! The prop got in the way of photos from the front :)	So green, so beautiful!

	The beginning of the Ruth gorge		Another party camped higher up the gorge from where we ended up

	We have to ski all this way... about to turn the corner and approach for landing	Approaching for landing

	Flying up the Ruth Gorge. Mt Barrill on the left, Gargoyle and Stump on the right	View of the Stump and Goldfinger from the plane. You can see right in the center the obvious corner system - that's it!	Our wings

	Paul and his favorite plane	Melissa exchanging final words with Paul before he leaves us!	Cool paint :)

		Another plane taking off

	Cool prop effect		Denali, the giant, in the background on the left

	Getting gear set-up, and roped up for the glacier travel	What a vast glacier	Can't stop shooting Denali. No real rush to get to camp, as it's not going to get dark!

	Alright, sleds are rigged - time to go!	We kept about 30 meters of rope between us	Pulling the sleds was a pain, but at least we were headed downhill

			The sled flipped over a few times on the side hills, and righting it was very frustrating... given it was probably about 120 lbs

	But then I was still smiling, happy to be in one of the most beautiful places in the world	We went the wrong way initially not paying attention, so I went up this hill to check out the view / scope out the route...	We tried to cut across prematurely, and had to go back left & take a wider path around these giant crevasses. Denali in the background!

	The approach, in black and white.	The big crevasses are obvious - the more subtle concave areas increasingly less obvious...	We're aiming to go there, and then right down the glacier for a couple of miles...

		A plane of tourists flying through, with Denali in the background - wow!

		The Gargoyle	Amazing mountains. Moose's Tooth

		The Gargoyle

		Moose's Tooth

	And then we went into the shadow of Mt Barrill		View from camp. The Stump is the formation in the foreground; Eye's Tooth is in the clouds in the background

		Eye's Tooth still in the clouds	Our objective in the evening light

	Camp! A 5 star resort can't match this!	Bad weather insurance	A nice light show in the sky

	We had a great kitchen table and a place to hang out and keep things dry! The clouds kept moving in & out...		We started the climb just after noon

	The next morning, the weather was a little unsettled, and rained a little in the early morning...	But made for beautiful clouds/views	Views from the base of the climb - can't beat them! Mt Dickey dominates...

	Starting up the climb - I climbed the first 10 feet in my ski boots, to keep rock shoes dry :)	First pitch of Goldfinger

		We started the climb just after noon	Melissa on the first pitch

		Sweet golden granite - what dreams are made of	But we went up anyway - as it's possible to rappel down from anywhere (and that's the descent)

	Can you spot our camp?	Here's a little help :)	Another pitch - the awesome corner continues!

		Looking down the second pitch	The weather was weird - it hailed / rained a little while climbing the second pitch...

		Looking down an awesome pitch, including a couple of fun and thought-provoking 5.10 roofs. Melissa is below standing below the first one.	Another cool pitch ahead!

	Not many bolts on the route...

		Lots of liebacking on this route!

	Not sure what the face is about...

	Not a bad view!		Melissa coming up the 6th or 7th pitch

		What an amazing pitch!

		Another view of camp :) So close, but so far away...

	Looking down the amazing and long corner!	Rappelling.. while it rained on and off

			There is a story behind this, I promise :)

	View from camp (Galaxy Nexus panorama)

	Gadget addiction

			Going cragging

	Day 2: going cragging		Absolutely amazing rock!

	This crack begs to be climbed	Wow, this crack looked amazing

		The short bit of off-width allowed for a no-hands rest knee jam

	Note the skis in the background :)

	Trying to figure out how to get up there and reach the higher cracks..

			Poser

		The crux - thin finger locks & stemming

		On the 3rd day, we cruised down the glacier towards Hut Tower that we wanted to climb. The weather didn't look the best... but we thought it might clear

			The last flight to make it out of the gorge - the cloud descended to the glacier 10 minutes later.

		Then it started raining	And then it started snowing

		Listening to the TAT air traffic - not flying, so not much...	We woke up to this!

	Packing up in the morning - it was very cold!	Mt Barrill in the foreground, and Denali in the background	Mt Dickey, soaring 5,000' above the glacier

	Moose's Tooth

		Mt Barrill and Denali again. Can't stop shooting...

	With the fresh snow, the small crevasses were hard to see. One of my skis went into this one, thigh deep.. scary

	More Denali.

	I hated this sled by this point... it felt like dragging a cow towards the slaughterhouse

			A family from Anchorage with their own plane came over for fresh tracks... nice!

	Seeing our plane made us super happy!

	Taking off.	Ruth Glacier downstream from where we were