Susan Munroe

Rock climbing a few weeks ago, two ski instructor friends, Jordan and Dennis, pulled me aside.  “Susan.  We heard that you’ve been riding a dirt bike.”  Dennis put his hand on my shoulder and stooped to look me in the face.  “Really??”  I bit my lip and tried not to smile.  “It just…it doesn’t seem [...]

September passed, and I was busy with several small fires around Salt Lake.  October has finished up as well, and with it the fire season.  Now it’s November, and the rocky peaks of the Wasatch have begun to wink at me with glittering, snowy eyes.  It’s started to rain again in the valley, and after [...]

“Engine 742, get out of there!!” Brandon shouted into the radio even as he stretched his long legs in a sprint towards the thirty-foot flames. An old growth ponderosa pine was torching out next to the engine; fire roared through its upper branches, orange tongues licking the sky. Our favorable westerly winds had shifted on [...]

The heat was oppressive. The sun shone down unimpeded, hit the black, ashy ridge top, and bounced back up through our feet and into our faces. Ninety degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, but my crew was walking through the part of the forest where the fire had burned the hottest, nuking the trees into crisp, [...]

Welcome to the new Susan. From hippie world traveler to burly, smoke-breathing firefighter. Instead of hugging trees, now I’m wishing they’d catch on fire so I could save them and start getting some of that legendary overtime and hazard pay. It’s not a natural transition; it’s taken training and various other components. Start with $453 [...]

My new God’s name is Ullr. Floating. Floating all day. On 24 inches of freshies, on good vibes between friends, on rays of sun sparkling on snow crystals in the air. Floating in the afterglow of a fantastic day. The Wasatch got dumped with snow all day yesterday, and I called in “overwhelmed” at my [...]

Salt Lake City is organized on a numbered grid system, with the Mormon Temple at the center (0,0) and the rest of the streets fanning out north, south, east, and west in straight, orderly lines. The valley is flat; mountains form protective stockades on the eastern and western edges. It’s the eastern peaks that draw [...]

This is what I tell my co-workers at the Brighton Resort Ski School when they roll their eyes about “icy conditions”.  To which they respond, “You must be from the east coast.”  The last week has been warm, the snow soft and thin in patches (this is, after all, pre-Thanksgiving skiing), but it has not [...]