McLean Wedding In NY Times.
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At the wedding of Andrew McLean and Polly Beth Samuels in the ski town of Alta, Utah, on Feb. 5, several of the young, outdoorsy guests had eyes as violet-blue as hydrangeas.
Lou Dawson, a friend of Mr. McLean and a mountaineer, explained that high altitudes can make your eyes sparkle like fantastic gems.
Mr. McLean, an extreme backcountry skier who spends a great deal of time at very high altitudes, had perhaps the bluest eyes of all. He lives in Salt Lake City, which he uses as a base camp for seeking out the kind of terrain he loves, so steep and icy Mr. McLean said it is like "skiing down the barrel of a giant gun." The bridegroom, who designs mountaineering gear, once climbed 20,320-foot Mount McKinley and skied off the summit.
"Like skiing in outer space," he said.
In 2004, Skiing magazine published a story: 11 Excuses for NOT Skiing With Andrew McLean. No. 2 (He'll Dust You) described his scary speed. No. 7 (Tragedy Dogs Him) noted that several people have died while skiing with Mr. McLean, including a noted mountaineer, Alex Lowe, in a 1999 Himalayan avalanche.
Yet the soft-spoken Mr. McLean, 43, resembles a cautious physician - like his father, Dr. Edward B. McLean, a retired ophthalmic surgeon in Bellevue, Wash. Mr. Dawson explained the dichotomy: "Andrew does radical things in a rational way."
Bruce Tremper, an avalanche expert and a friend, theorized that Mr. McLean's knack for surviving is linked to his humble nature. "Leave your ego behind," Mr. Tremper said. "Leave your self behind. Think like an avalanche."
Mr. McLean met Ms. Samuels in December 2001 at a trailhead near Alta. At first he was attracted to the bumper sticker on her car, which said La Grave, France. "La Grave is a teeny place, just for people into steep, remote backcountry skiing," Mr. McLean said. He recalled thinking Ms. Samuels was cute, and hopefully into steep skiing, but their conversation lasted about as long as it takes a snowflake to melt.
They met again a few weeks later, when each turned up on the same three-day backcountry skiing trip. The group of eight slept in a yurt, skiing untracked powder during the day and cooking meals on a pot-belly stove at night. This time Mr. McLean and Ms. Samuels talked a lot.
"There was really good energy between us," she recalled. Both love dogs, books, political discussions and sunrises at high altitude.
Ms. Samuels, a redheaded 35-year-old Utah assistant attorney general, has not spent a lot of time sleeping in yurts or thinking like an avalanche. Her upbringing was extremely urban. Leslie Samuels, her father, is a New York lawyer and a former assistant secretary of the Treasury. Her mother, Judith Thorn, is a senior vice president and a broker at the Warburg Realty Partnership in New York.
Seeking adventure, Ms. Samuels moved to Salt Lake City in December 2000, and soon realized that the best place to meet people was in the mountains. "If you move here and you're single, you better learn to ski or mountain-bike or risk your life in a variety of ways," said Fraser Nelson, a friend.
Ms. Samuels learned quickly. "She's a tomboy," said another friend, Kristy Ratliff. "She's not afraid of anything, including skiing with Andrew."
After the yurt trip, Ms. Samuels and Mr. McLean skied together frequently, often at dawn and always with their dogs. His, Greta, is a mild-mannered Bernese mountain dog. Hers, a Labrador named Brooklyn, has no manners. "He's eaten the dashboard on my car, and the armrest," Ms. Samuels said.
She loved the fact that Mr. McLean could ski chutes that looked like frozen waterfalls, and also sew a fleece vest for Brooklyn, who was always shivering on their trips.
Mr. McLean liked the fact that Ms. Samuels never tried to make him go "resort" skiing. "She loves, even encourages," his expeditions, he said.
Last August, he proposed at a very high altitude, atop Mount Kilimanjaro.
Laynee Jones, a friend of the bride, gave her a wilderness bachelorette party in her mountain cabin. "We had 20 girls come up," she said. "All 20 had their own skis and skins and beacons and shovels." When asked if they talked about marriage, Ms. Jones replied: "No! We talked about skiing."
At the couple's wedding in Our Lady of the Snows Chapel in Alta, Mr. McLean's mother, Duse McLean of Bellevue, a ski instructor and guidebook author, said of the crowd, "They all look like normal people until you see them going downhill."
Before the ceremony, led by Mr. Dawson, who became a Universal Life minister for the event, Brooklyn ran through the crowd, looking hungry. Afterward, as the couple left the church, friends formed an archway with ski poles, everyone tapping them together, like a skier's version of clinking champagne glasses.
Ms. Ratliff sang a song she had written for the couple, about how Ms. Samuels is the only person Mr. McLean won't leave in the dust. The chorus went:
I ski fast
And I don't wait for no one
Except you
