Susan Munroe » powder

Plane tickets: bought! And, why Americans should travel more.

Susan Munroe — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 04:57:18 +0000

Tonight’s my last night working at Solitude. These past several weeks have been a long, white blur. I come home at midnight, collapse into bed and dream until the beepbeepbeep of the alarm crashes the slumber party, waking me up to do it all over again. I also worked at my editing job this morning, downtown SLC. I stayed a bit later than normal, organizing projects, and by the time I took the train to the other side of town, I’d missed the bus that normally carries my bike and me all the way up the 7 mile hill (a gentle hill, but a hill’s still a hill…still). So, I got an hour of biking exercise and was an hour late for work. This is why tonight’s the last night for me at the Inn at Solitude. I don’t have enough time to do important life things in between jobs. The alternator for my car has been sitting on my desk for about two weeks, waiting for me to have time to order and install its replacement. Too many days I’ve had to dash out of the editing office, leaving projects unfinished, dumping them in the laps of my co-editors so that I can catch the train or bus to get up the mountain to work at the Inn. I really like my editing job. Time to put it a little bit higher on the priority list.

I’ve only three weeks left of any work, anyhow. I pulled the trigger tonight on $1,000 plane tickets to Lima and Bogota to work for Awamaki, the Peruvian non-profit. March 14-May 9. Felt a bit more fluttery about the whole thing than I think I ever have for an international trip. Last night I waffled around on kayak and expedia and LAN websites, making notes about small price differences if I arrive in Medellin instead of Bogota, cruising the traveler’s forums on Lonely Planet Thorntree learning about no-go areas in Colombia, running bus routes in my head for feasibility. Looking at the map, at the surprising distance between Lima and Bogota, I recalled the 28-hour misery marathon riding from Santiago to Arica: a head cold aggravated by constantly changing altitude, legneckbackfeetarm muscles cramping as I twisted myself into a thousand different positions across two bus seats. This time around, I decided, I would splurge on the plane tickets.

Three journalists from Vermont, Chicago, and New York are staying in the hotel tonight, on a all-expense paid ski vacation underwritten by Ski Salt Lake. During the course of our conversation, I mentioned my own writerly aspirations, and gave them the address to my website. In return, they gave me some advice: join Twitter. So I did. Twitter and Facebook in one month – look at me, joining the world of the internet! Ted (or, Traveling Ted TV) is my very first follower! Taking a minute to look at his website in return, I found this simple and convincing list: Five Reasons why more Americans Should Travel Abroad. Reason #4 was my favorite: see that we are lucky to have what we have. Oh, yes. Lucky that we aren’t picking our worldly possessions out of the rubble that’s left of our house. Christchurch has been foremost in my thoughts these last few days. Here’s my addition to the list. #6: more Americans should travel in order to know cities like Chch, in order to understand the images on the news, and to have an impression of the city before the quake to balance the sensationalism and pain being broadcast post-quake.

To end on a good note: 20-36 inches of snow predicted this weekend. Life is, well, it’s pretty good.

Follow me on twitter! @susanmtraveler (I think that’s how you put it…this is new for me)

Living the Dream – Season Three

Susan Munroe — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:13:56 +0000

I started my job as a snowmaker today, though Mother Nature seemed to be sending me a message that, if she was going to be honest, she didn’t really need my help. Thick snowflakes curtained the road up Little Cottonwood Canyon, and Chris’ truck slid around a few corners despite being in four-wheel drive. Fresh snow banks on either side of the road made it clear: winter has arrived. Only after I parked safely at the Alta cat shop, where the snowmakers were meeting for orientation, was I able to look around and breathe in the wintry scene. Barely four days ago had Chris and I stood in this same parking lot, unloading our mountain bikes from the back of his truck. Autumn ricocheted off the smooth, granite walls, colors spread like a rainbow over the four thousand feet of elevation between the top and bottom of the canyon. We pedaled up the aptly named “Summer Road”, which switchbacks uphill for two gravelly miles and provides a view of the narrow rock corridor all the way back down to the Salt Lake valley. Today, the Summer Road was covered in seven inches of Wasatch powder. Not much, by Utah standards, but a fine showing for the first storm of the winter.

Last year, I slid into this job at Alta Ski Resort with only three weeks left in the season. Snowmaking in Utah starts in late October and finishes before Christmas. Unlike in New England, where the resorts churn out man-made snow all season long, or risk their customers skiing on dirt during a February thaw, Utah resorts need only a bit of a head start, a thick base of snow to guarantee they’ll be able to open before Thanksgiving and stay open until mid-April. I endured a great deal of mostly-good-natured derision from the five other guys on my shift last year. They were putting in nine weeks of work for the same season pass to Alta that I was earning in three. I would shrug and smile like I was getting away with something (because I was). There’d been an unexpected opening on the day shift, and I was the lucky person in the right place at the right time. I loved the job: riding snowmobiles and skis to check on the snow guns, hauling hoses and hardware, shoveling snow and chipping ice, climbing into shallow manholes to hook up electricity and water to the machines. I was outdoors, in the snow, working with my hands, getting exercise, using interesting tools, learning about new machinery, and functioning as an essential member of a team. And, it was almost like playing God. I made it snow!

Planning to take this whole summer off and spend the money I earned as a firefighter last summer, I knew I needed to have a reliable job lined up for this fall. Snowmaking was the obvious choice, and so this morning found me seated at a long conference table with fifteen other snowmakers, cradling mugs of coffee and sharing grins about all the fresh snow falling outside. I’m the only woman on three shifts. It’s ego, pure and simple, but I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t part of why I like the job. Today was about paperwork, safety videos, meeting the new crew members, dotting I’s and crossing T’s, but it felt good to be gathered with this group of scruffy dudes, to be wearing hiking boots, a grubby polypropylene shirt, and new double-fronted Carhartt work pants (I’m a big nerd for outdoor gear; I can’t help it). Third season in, I’m still living the ski bum dream, though it’s sometimes hard to recognize. Today, however, it was unmistakable: gusts of wind moved the snow in sheets across the cat shop windows, chimneys smoked in the lodge across the parking lot, the still-yellow aspen trees on the mountain wore white, and there I was in the middle of it all. Thanks be to Ullr, and let the season begin!

Living the ski bum dream

Susan Munroe — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 18:10:25 +0000

Happy Susan.

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 Solitude night job, leaving my Wednesday wiiiiiide open to pay tribute to Ullr (ooh-ler), the Norse god of snow.

I went out with Brighton friends, Jack, Koogs, and David. We rode to the top of the Great Western chair and slipped our way out of bounds and paused between the huge, smooth, wind-sculpted cornices that hung over Lacko-Waxen, a 100-meter (wide and deep) bowl on the back side of Clayton’s peak. We peered through the tips of our skis at the sparkly white expanse of untouched snow below and dropped in one at a time. David launched a small jump at the bottom of the bowl and landed in a cloud of snow. “I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING!” he howled as he continued making turns in the nearly chest-deep snow. Hiking back up, out of the bowl, I followed Jack as he broke trail up the side of the hill. It’s quiet outside of the resort. Placing my feet carefully in each boot-shaped hole, I climbed, hearing only the breath moving in my lungs and the crunch and squeak of the snow in the boot pack. My skis rocked slightly in their straps on my backpack. The sun came and went, warming my back and highlighting my shape on the snow in front of me.

Following the boot-pack back to the top...so we can ski it again.

It was so good, we did it again. This time taking a slightly different line, to the right, I tore over a small knoll and turned into the funky fall-line, carving in powder that would be over my head if I fell, my head bursting with pleasure with each smooth, soft slice. The snow made a sound like pffoooooo as it exploded under my skis and flew into my face and into my lungs. It’s like breathing in dry diamonds; tiny frozen crystals melting on the walls of my lungs. The four of us climbed back up to the ridgeline and followed it farther out of bounds under the summit of (Mt.) 10-4-20. White snow and glowing sun and black, rocky, mountains overlapped against the inconstant, day-after-the-storm sky like a collage edged in silver. Light snuck through the clouds and dappled its way along the tops of the trees, blessing the evergreens with golden-green halos. I moved down through the aspen trees, twisting and turning and still finding endless, deep, untracked snow, arriving at the run out, where an established ski trail snakes through the flats and the trees, back to civilization. Rushing through the trees with my skis plastered to the trail, I slid around and up the sides of corners like I was on a bobsled track, ducking branches and drafting behind Koogs on his snowboard, dodging and laughing when he tried to trip me up.

Popping out of the trees back into the resort boundaries was like waking up out of a dream. There were so many people, happily churning their way down groomed trails that have already seen a dozen, a hundred other skiers. Their very presence was noisy, and I was stunned to remember that this is where I am usually skiing, and happy to be there. Hours later, I sat in the bar with Jack. We were both smiling, vaguely, as we sipped from our Pabst Blue Ribbon 24oz cans and studied our cards over his caribou-horn cribbage board. I slowly pegged my way to victory, and Jack turned his cards over and sighed, tired, satisfied. “What a day. What a day.” Amen to that. Praise be to Ullr, and praise be to Wasatch Powder.

If it’s white, it’s not ice.

Susan Munroe — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:24:00 +0000

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 been icy. “We’re just spoiled,” the locals will shrug.

I can’t wait to get spoiled.

Salt Lake City, Utah, home of the Greatest Snow on Earth (they say). With seven ski areas within ten miles of each other, all less than an hour drive from the city, all averaging 500 inches (12 m) of powder every winter, I don’t care if it’s the “greatest” or only so-so, just as long as they let me ski on it.

Twice a week I work the counter at the Brighton ski school, selling lesson packages and directing harried parents to the rental shop, the bathrooms, the cafeteria. My uniform is jeans, a fleece vest, and a baseball hat or beanie. I answer phones and smile at customers and when it’s slow no one minds if I read a book behind the desk or slip out to take some runs. I love my job. I hitchhike to work or to ski every day from the mouth of the canyon, me and a handful of other bums. Yesterday I rode up with a registered nurse who described to me the first time he witnessed a C-section birth. “Dude, I grew more in that half an hour than I did through all of puberty!” Today I waited in a line of cars that snaked for ten miles through the jutting canyon walls. I watched the emergency lights spinning for an hour, on the other side of the trees where a truck had rolled over the embankment.

I live with Kathy, a cheerful massage therapist, and her husband Troy, a construction worker. Winter and the flagging economy give him plenty of hours to fill playing WWII video games and shouting at the University of Utah football team. Kathy’s sixteen-year-old, Mackenzie, makes occasional appearances as a dark-haired zombie on a stool in front of the TV on the kitchen counter. I have a room to myself, furnished, full use of the kitchen and a living room, wireless internet, and the company of a balding cat when I want it. They’ve also loaned me a bike for the winter. Not having a car, the bike means freedom, and being able to visit the local library twice a day. I grin at how much faster a bike is than walking, even as my teeth chatter and my hands turn to ice in the wind.

Beginning a life in a new place is always hard, and I’m a little bit lonely, despite the friendliness of my co-workers and the kindness of the Eaton family (wonderfully gracious friends from back east who gave me a place to stay when I arrived and helped me find work and housing). I’m still smiling, though, and I can look ahead to a month from now when the slopes will be overflowing with snow, when regular paychecks will be plopping into my checking account, when I know the names of all the ski instructors I work with, when I am too busy to think, when I’m apparating from powder day to night job to day job to drinks at the pub with the other scruffy snow addicts, when all of this is normal, when I forget that I’ve ever lived anywhere else.