It’s negative 20 outside, but you’d never guess it in here. The Stanley High Country Inn is cozy with fireplace warmth and verdant plant life. Lara and Tara’s hearty laughter fills me with summer.

Chloe and I headed south from our friend Madeline’s house in Castle Mountain, Alberta at dawn, into a 10-hour drive and a barrage of winter storm warnings. The weather came in hardest, heaviest and white-out-iest in the final stretch to Stanley, Idaho, winding along the Salmon River.

Chloe and I have both spent a few summers based in Stanley, a picture-perfect town on the edge of the Sawtooths that regularly clocks in as the coldest place in the country—summer and winter. Stanley's year-round population of 63 booms in the summer as river and mountain guides flood into this gateway to the wilderness. The dirt-road town has three bars and thrums with live music every summer night.

We expect to find a desolate, if beautiful, scene in the winter. Instead, the local restaurant is full of familiar faces. Dogs play in the snow-packed streets. Our friends Lara and Tara run the brunch spot, the High Country Inn, with love, laughter and life.

Lara Antonello lives by her own recipe. In no particular order, Lara has worked as a bear-aware advocate, forage analyst, backpacking guide, writer, avalanche educator, porter and hut chef. After a few years of doing anything and everything to make ends meet in this little mountain town, she needed something different. Inspired by her Cuban heritage and her great-grandmother's recipes, she opened La Osera, her empanada truck. As Lara says, "Feeding people is my love language." Operating her own eatery just fits her: It combines her passions for community, conservation and food.

In a mountain town with so little infrastructure, Lara got creative to make her vision work. Most summer mornings, she wakes at 3 a.m. to use another restaurant's kitchen. Our bubbly friend nods hello to the late-night crowd still buzzing around the just-closed bar—she’ll probably see them again mid-morning. By the time La Osera opens at 9, the warming ovens are filled with fresh-baked empanadas.

This winter storm has been generous to Stanley. After the gals finish work in the restaurant, we grab Lara’s two dogs and head out for a ski tour. We find a fresh foot of pow on the old skin track, and clouds keep rolling overhead with more. Every few minutes, the weather changes—from bright sunset views to heavy snow globe snow. We zigzag up through the burnt forest, catching up on everything—books, boys and who’s having babies. As we start transitioning, Tara gets a little quieter, “Just so you guys know, I haven’t skied powder in a long time!” she says with a twinge of a Jersey accent.

Tara Sutphen is a total badass, but she would never tell you that. The 5'3" fireball headed west to the University of Montana from New Jersey and quickly picked up a knack for the outdoors. Tara has subtly established herself as a fly-fishing expert on the Middle Fork, a fly fisher's mecca. She has managed Stanley’s fly fishing shop, lived out of a trailer to fish steelhead all winter and put innumerable big-wig clients on big Middle Fork fish.

This winter marks Tara’s return to skiing. She’s recently single and relishing the time and space to herself in the mountains. As her friend, it’s amazing to watch Tara be radiantly herself.

Lara swings into mountain guide mode, offering Tara a few powder skiing pointers. We hoot and holler downhill. No matter how many times I ski powder, the absolute freedom of the dance with frozen water sparks a flame of joy. Tara—ever an athlete—is just fine: “This is soooo much fun!” she screams.

The next day, we get an early start for Galena Pass, taking two cars to set up a traverse-style tour. Our imaginations keep zipping towards the summer: Lara’s plans for the empanada cart, dreams of big trail runs in the wilderness, how many Middle Fork trips do Tara and I have together?

That night, Lara has to bake five-dozen cookies for Sawtooth Mountain Guides. This is her favorite side gig: making cookies for guided mountain trips. Just like with her empanadas, she's always coming up with creative new recipes. Lara and Tara will porter food into the Williams Peak Yurt in the morning. The following week, Lara is set to spend four days at the yurt as a chef. She does a few of those trips a season—it combines her guiding background with her love of food. It's a great gig, too; when she works efficiently, she can ski for most of the day between cheffing up breakfast and dinner.

Once again, we’re sad to leave our friends, but the kernels of summer plans together give us all something to look forward to. Tara hands us a loaf of her homemade sourdough on our way out. We have a couple hours’ drive to Salmon, where we'll meet up with our friend Addy and get into the Beartooth Mountains.