Trek Together: Best Ski Day Ever

Almost.

Yesterday it was snowing hard, all day long. We went cross country skiing and had a blast. And we knew that today there would be deep powder for skiing.

We started our day with hearty granola (that Kristin made the day before) and natural yogurt from the local Coop. We added kiwi, banana and orange. So, we're off to a good start.

We had decided that since it snowed so much, we should make the most of it by going to a ski resort. This has been verboten so far, but we had agreed that we'd try at least one ski resort while we're in the Alps. So, today it was!

I picked Marmolada, because yesterday it reportedly got the most snow . . . of any ski resort in the world (70+cm). Marmolada has a gondola that climbs 1800 meters (6,000 feet). And, it is not very touristed as there are few hotels and no towns near it. Perfect.

Kristin and I skied off-piste all day, enjoying knee-deep powder, face shots, and burning legs. I had some spectacular falls, but it didn't matter. It was pure joy.

Lunch was awesome. Last night I made some Lentil burgers, adapted from a recipe on 101 Cookbooks. I added carrot for moisture and a hint of sweetness, and ground-up garbanzo beans for protein. So today we made open-faced sandwiches, with the Lentil patties on top of multigrain bread, smothered with sauteed onions, tofu slices, spinach, and local soft cheese. The meal was completed with a few bites of chocolate.

We finished our day of skiing by racing down to the chairlift to catch the very last ride back to the top... for one more run. As soon as we offloaded from the lift at the top, they literally shut down the ski lift. We took our time skiing all the way to the bottom again. It felt great to have the last run of the day.

A few kilometers of driving and half a chocolate bar away, we stopped at the entrance to a canyon that is only a few meters wide but has walls that are 100 meter high. There are tons of frozen waterfalls along the sides, as well as a small river down the center. We took a leisurely stroll up and down this canyon. There were some ice climbers on one of the frozen waterfalls. It was just a really cool experience, and we were toasty warm, all bundled up in our down parkas and fatty mitts.

Finally at 7pm, we arrived home. We immediately unpacked our ski gear and hung our clothing and boots to dry above the radiator.

Then we started preparing dinner, which was: pumpkin gnocchi with peas, walnuts and aged-cheese; and a salad of spinach, red pepper, tomato, carrot, cucumber, garbanzo beans, and Kristin's vinaigrette.

See, today was perfect.

Well, almost.

I have spent the last three hours trying to recover the photos on my SD card. Photos that I accidentally deleted before I had them backed-up on my computer. I am still working on it.

So, if I can save the photos then you can be sure that I'll post them up here this weekend.

If the photos are gone forever, then only Kristin and I will know some of the incredible things we saw today.

Luckily, I backed up my photos before we left this morning. So, below are three photos taken on my jog before sunrise this morning. This is the town that we're living in for a month here in the Dolomites.