Shredding The Ice Ice in Utah

After Mexico I headed to Utah with a brief 22 hour stop in Anchorage to get rid of the swimsuit and pick up the ski gear. I've had dreams of shredding Pow Pow for weeks, but so far all we've had to shred is the ice ice. We went out today with plans of skating up and down the slopes but forgot our freshly sharpened ice skates. Instead, we used skis to access a beautiful little area in the Little Cottonwood Canyon. Normally we pack a sandwich and some energy gels, and a bottle or two of water. Today was different. In an effort to go beyond the norms of acceptable backcountry ski behavior, Lorin lugged a BBQ grill on his backpack (see photos), and lunch consisted of Steaks, Portabello Mushrooms, Baked Potatoes, and a bottle of Norton Malbec Reserve, 2006. It was easily the best backcountry meal I've ever had and well worth all the extra effort. As we got halfway up, a storm blew in and winds were gusting around 60mph, making travel almost impossible as we were on ice anyway which is difficult enough to get up with skins. To save the day and not ruin our lunch plans, we dug a snowcave into the side of the mountain in some trees and stayed fairly well protected. Sorry for the photo of me looking like a crazy Wino - we planned on bringing fancy wine glasses but Lorin forgot them so we had to drink the wine out of the bottle. I think it made our meal even classier. Yesterday was in the mid to upper 40's and sunny but still pretty icy.. most of the sunny photos were taken yesterday which include our bread bowl and clam chowder lunch, and me sitting in Lorin's hammock (note how large my butt looks in that shot!) It's currently dumping in the canyons, so I'll post some true pow pow shots here in a few days. In the meantime, here's our over the top lunch and some ice: