Caroline Louise Gleich and Robert James Lea were married Aug. 10 at the Snowbird Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. Kristin M. Leiferman, the bride’s mother who became a Universal Life minister for the event, officiated.
The bride, 33, is a professional ski mountaineer and adventurer based in Park City, Utah. She graduated from the University of Utah.
She is the daughter of Dr. Leiferman and Dr. Gerald J. Gleich of Salt Lake City. The bride’s parents both work at the University of Utah Health Systems in Salt Lake City. Her father is an immunologist; her mother is a dermatologist.
The groom, 38, is a Realtor at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Park City. He is also a professional athlete who has already completed two-thirds of what he called his “self-created, ultimate world triathlon,” by climbing Mount Everest and swimming the English Channel. On Sept. 1, he is to begin the final leg of his triathlon: cycling across the United States. He graduated from the University of California, Davis.
He is a son of Cindy Lea and Jim Lea of Park City. The groom’s father also works at Berkshire Hathaway Home Services in Park City, where the groom’s mother retired as a real estate agent.
The groom’s first marriage ended in divorce.
The couple met at a restaurant in Salt Lake City in October 2014, when Ms. Gleich received a comment about a photo she had posted of the friend with whom she was having dinner: “Just saw you take that picture, look to your 6 o’clock #creeper.”
Ms. Gleich soon spotted Mr. Lea, who had written the note.
“He was good-looking and piqued my curiosity,” she said. “I just hoped he wasn’t really a creeper.”
Three days later, they enjoyed a first date at Mr. Lea’s home in Park City.
They began dating and it wasn’t long before Mr. Lea was intrigued.
“She had this shoot-for-the-moon mentality that was very inspiring,” he said. “I enjoyed learning about her lifestyle and her sense of adventure.”
As the months rolled by Ms. Gleich came to regard Mr. Lea “as a person I could trust and depend on, someone who was always there for me,” she said. “He was a real man, not a man-child or one of those Peter Pans out there who never wanted to grow up.”
They also believed in many of the same causes, and became activists together, fighting climate change and advocating for the nation’s national parks. They have also embarked on a social media campaign “to raise awareness about the gender gap in outdoor recreation,” Ms. Gleich said. “We need to get more women not just to the tops of mountains, but to the top in everyday leadership positions out there in the work world.”
In Sept. 2018, after dating for four years, Ms. Gleich proposed to Mr. Lea — “I asked his mom for permission,” she said — at the top of Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain in the world at 26,906 feet.
“I guess she got tired of waiting for me to ask,” Mr. Lea said, laughing.
Eight months later, they climbed Mount Everest together. “It was a wonderful but very stressful experience,” Ms. Gleich said.
Asked what their next big challenge might be, Ms. Gleich pointed to what she considered the most challenging and slippery slope of all: marriage.
“It’s the scariest and biggest adventure either of us could have ever imagined being a part of,” she said. “Of all the adventures we have been on, marriage is definitely the one with the most uncertain outcome.”
