Susan Munroe » Solitude Resort

the Wasatch from above

Susan Munroe — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 04:13:27 +0000

I had to run to catch my flight today. The relative proximity of SLC International to my home in Cottonwood Heights made me a bit more complacent than I should have been. The good news is I made it. The bad is that now I’m sweaty.

It was a spectacular day to lift off. The airplane banked first west, into the edge of an approaching storm. Even in the gargantuan Boeing 737 I could feel the resistance of the headwind. We curved northward, over Great Salt Lake, over the sea-monster spine of Antelope Island where it arches out of the salt- and clay-stained water. 1 pm sunlight winked on and off in myriad salt pools and marshes. The plane continued turning until its nose pointed east, toward Denver, but my window faced south. Far below sprawled the Salt Lake Valley, Utah Lake. Then we crossed the Wasatch. I challenged myself to identify each wrinkled defile cutting through the mountain range, like spokes in a great, crooked wheel centered in the midst of Sandy, or Murray. City Creek Canyon, first, directly behind the capital building. After recognizing this one, the rest are easy to pick out. South of City Creek is Emigration, then Parley’s. Interstate 80, the great gray worm, is a dead giveaway. Millcreek next, narrow, overgrown, almost hidden. Big Cottonwood Canyon. My home for the past three years. There’s Solitude Mountain Resort, wide open trails bright with the first layer of winter white. Brighton is a little harder to find, more trees, smaller runs, dwarfed by Deer Valley and Park City, just over the ridgeline in Parley’s. I send silent thanks into the quiet heart of Ten-Four-Twenty Peak before pointing my eyes farther south into Little Cottonwood. I can’t quite see Devil’s Castle, my favorite feature, or Mt. Baldy. Never did get to ski that main chute. Above all this, blocking my view of the rest of the canyons is Mt.Timpanogos. Its distinctive horizontal striations, highlighted with snow, overpower the range. The higher the airplane climbs, the larger the mountain seems, even as we move steadily east, and thin frontal clouds slide over the Wasatch like a curtain. It’s going to snow tonight, and I’m heading south.

Running to make the plane meant that I didn’t have time to get sentimental about leaving, and seeing the mountains from above is more wondrous than sad. They passed from my sight so quickly. I was reminded of how small this corner of the world is, how much more there is to see, and also how permanent these peaks are. They aren’t going anywhere. And someday I’ll travel back over them, tracing today’s flight path in reverse, coming back. Someday. After I’ve seen a bit more of the world. Someday.

Overacheivements

Susan Munroe — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 05:13:56 +0000

Feeling a bit over-extended these days. But oh, it feels good. I’m making up for five months of being unemployed and purposeless, I guess. A lot is happening all of a sudden. I’m going into my third winter in Utah, and I’m reminded of my third year at Clark University: the first two years were rough-ish, but I’m finally hitting my stride, and opportunities are beginning to present themselves. Suddenly the world feels very small and very possible, a feeling I learned to recognize while riding the wave of serendipity in my past travels. I met Clint when I first moved to Salt Lake City, at a block party to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama. It was a chilly night in January, but the party organizers had rented gas heaters and wood scraps were burning in barrels along the street. I’d chucked my old tennis shoes at a cardboard cutout of G.W. Bush (“Shoe out the old!”), tucked five dollars into the plastic jar at the refreshment table and mixed a hot chocolate and Bailey’s before finding my way indoors and switching to beer. I thought he was cute, in a round-faced, curly-blonde way. I didn’t know many people at the party, and was grateful to have someone to talk to. He mentioned his wife, Linda, and the conversation wound tipsily around his work as an entomologist and hers as a forester-cum-editor. Almost two years later, I don’t remember how Linda and I eventually met, but we now swap hiking guidebooks over martinis and Mediterranean food. Her husband and my boyfriend have been friends for longer than we have, but she and I have bonded quickly. Mutual friends roll their eyes when we meet up at parties, because they know we’re going to monopolize each other for the rest of the night.

Linda works for an environmental consulting firm. Last spring, knowing that I have a degree in English, she mentioned that the company was looking for a part-time editor. At the time I was packing to hit the road for the summer, and knew I’d committed to snowmaking in the fall. Interested, yes, but it felt like poor timing. A month ago she got in touch to tell me they were still thinking of taking on someone new, so I sent in a resume and cover letter. It was the most challenging job application I’d completed oh, since college, probably. I haven’t applied for a serious, “professional” job in five years. My food service, customer service, and outdoor/physical labor resumes are in tip top shape, but an editing resume? Um. Well. Yes, I have this degree, yes I worked in a publishing house (seven years ago), yes I’ve always been very good at grammar and research, yes I’m a perfectionist and a good reader, but phew, finding solid work experience to back up all of those general acquired skills was challenging. I spent the better part of a day compiling, wording, and re-wording my resume and writing a cover letter. I wasn’t sure it would be good enough to get the job, but I told my parents about it, bragged to my boyfriend, and felt a warm, satisfying pride in actually doing it. I can still complete hard assignments! I do have some innate talents, five years out of academia! Kari, Linda’s boss, wrote back immediately to tell me that my resume had been received and was “in the mix”. Ah well, I thought, at least I tried. It took another month for her to call me and offer me the job, but she did. I was sitting in the waiting area in my local Firestone while the mechanics changed the oil in my car, and I accepted. I started the next day. That was three days ago, and I’ve been giddy every since.

What is this new job? Say that Kennecott Copper Mine (the largest open pit copper mine in the world! the website brags. I can literally see it from my house) wanted to dig another pit. The National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) provides laws and regulations that the mine must follow in order to do any expansion, so Kennecott would hire the company I work for to run tests, inspect the site for archaeological artifacts, and write up an Environmental Impact Statement, which I would then edit. The writing is technical, but fascinating. In two days of work, I’ve already learned about the history of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe of Idaho, and that one of the major issues with building a solar panel farm in the Arizona desert is the amount of water the farm would require. I feel like I’m listening to NPR or reading National Geographic articles while working. I love it. I’m getting paid (well) to learn new things and use my college degree! The best part (or, one of the best parts) is that I’ve been hired on a temporary/part time basis. I don’t have to commit to working in an office for the next year. Kari (who’s my boss now, too) told me they could have anywhere from zero to twenty hours of work for me a week. I’m more or less functioning as a contractor. And once I get the hang of the company’s style guidelines, I will likely be able to work from home, on my own time. This is a dream come true for me. I’m building skills and connections that will ultimately allow me to earn a living from home. This is just the beginning.

So, a new job! On top of still making snow at Alta (we should be finished any day now, except the weather won’t cooperate. Salt Lake is stuck in an inversion: polluted, 35°F air in the valley trapped by high, 45°F air in the mountains. I scrape frozen pollution off my car windshield every morning.), I’m coming up on the dates when I told Brighton and Solitude Resorts I’d be able to start work. Weekends at Brighton, weeknights at Solitude (no housekeeping this time, just reception/bellman work at the Inn), and my daytime hours split between skiing and this new, professional editing position. Plus, I have friends! GIRL friends, even. I’ve stuck around long enough to make meaningful connections with women whom I admire and respect. And strangely, staying put seems to be helping me to achieve some of my greater life goals: writing, adventure, travel, baking… I’m writing more, and more easily, than I have in a long time. Adventure lurks around every corner (motorcycling in Moab, downhill mountain biking, dating a man with a 10-year-old). I’m planning my travels purposefully instead of randomly (at least for the moment). The next trip is slated for mid-March, back to Peru, with a possible two week side trip to Colombia. And while I still rely on store-bought bread for my own personal use, next weekend at Brighton I’ll be selling all kinds of baked goodies at the 2^nd annual craft fair. Life is moving like a flooded river: fast, and full. It is good.

the last entry for a while

Susan Munroe — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:08:00 +0000

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 the powder addicts: the Wasatch front, a 10,000 foot high wall, home to six of the biggest ski resorts in Utah. I live at 9600 S (96 blocks south of the temple) and 800 E (8 blocks east of the temple), in the suburbs, where every road is four lanes wide, every lane is thick with cars, and every car has only one person in it. I commute, on foot, on bike, and on bus, riding up out of the valley and into the canyon early every morning, half asleep. I bum rides from friends and coworkers every night. The valley plays hide and seek with us as we drive down after dark; the huge, flat, salty expanse twinkles with little lights that appear and disappear behind the high canyon walls.

I work weekends at Brighton, and now, weeknights at Solitude, where I work for the condo management company as a hybrid housekeeper-supervisor-houseman-front-desk-gopher type person. The job is varied, physical and lets me ski all day and earn money at night. And there are other perks: brand new telemark boots, my size, that I found thrown in the garbage, and the three bottles of $30 wine sitting on my dresser, also salvaged from the leavings of a group of millionaires I had to clean up after. The best part of it, though, is the housekeeping staff from Mexico, Peru, Boliva, and Ecuador. I speak Spanish with them all day, joke about traditions, reminisce about locations, and at lunch share their maiz tostada, mote and platano frito. I can’t describe how much this means to me, how happy this makes me. And the housekeepers are pretty excited about it too. As in Peru and Ecuador, the respect I earn for speaking their language is enormous. Here, however, I find our interactions more fulfilling. Most of these people have lived in the US for 7, 8, 9 years, and have adapted to our culture. When we talk, there’s no frustrating gap in understanding. We aren’t explaining to each other, we’re conversing; between my knowledge of Latinos and their knowledge of Norte Americanos, we’ve got a good middle ground where we can relate to each other.

The skiing is unbelievable. There are six ski areas spread across the Wasatch Front. With the right gear and a lot of traversing, it’d be possible to ski from one ridgeline to the next, leapfrogging from one ski area to another. The possibilities are dizzying. There is so much snowfall every winter that everything is skiable. Even the most rock-studded and tree lined chute will yield great, soft turns once it’s filled in. I had my first powder day two weeks ago, in Solitude’s famous Honeycomb Canyon, a fresh tracks treasure trove. Visibility was poor: it was snowing, and snowing hard. The mountain’s lower elevations picked up four inches of freshies in two hours. From the top of the chairlift, Honeycomb Canyon is accessible via a tiny track running around the top of the canyon wall, and my friend Patrick and I shuffled and side-stepped our way across it, through the trees and over rocks for five thigh-burning minutes to arrive at a steep, open pitch: covered in snow and completely untracked. I followed Patrick over the lip into the waist deep snow, took two turns, and laughed. “I’m never going to leave this place, am I?” I shouted down at Patrick. My legs were on fire and my face was numb, but I was grinning like a crazy person.

Christmas I spent in the valley, watching the weather out the windows of my friend Nick’s house. Wind, then rain, then sleet, then snow, finally, falling at more than an inch an hour. We tried to make a snowman, and had to use road-slush to hold the fresh, dry snow together. The day after Christmas I worked in the ski school at Brighton, helping tame the line of powder-hungry kids and parents that snaked all the way out of the lobby and down the hill outside, and counted my blessings that I don’t have to ski during the holidays.

So, life is good, and the skiing is great, and the writing…well, that’s been a little strained. In the interest of not forcing it, I’m taking a hiatus from the blog for the time being. This means you all will have to work a little bit harder to find out what I’m up to. Send me emails (susanmunroe@gmail.com), please, or call (email me to ask for the phone #) – I’m closer to you all than I’ve been in a year and I own a cell phone. Me not writing the blog shouldn’t mean that we lose touch; it should give us a reason to reconnect. In the meantime, enjoy life, and I’ll do the same. I’ll let you know when you can expect to see me back here.

And when the inspiration strikes, I will be back. See you in a bit.

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.