Susan Elizabeth Bulger Chelstrom, 73, died of cancer in Idaho on July 2, 2023.
Sue graduated from St. Anthony Park Elementary and Murray Junior-Senior High School (class of 1967). She sang in the choir and sang the lead in school musicals. She earned her accounting degree at Normandale Community College.
Sue worked at her dad’s pharmacy, Miller Drug Store, through her school years and beyond.
Sue and her husband relocated to Boise, Idaho in 1993. She worked in construction accounting and cash management. She opened her own business providing bookkeeping, accounting and cash management services to small businesses.
Sue and Chel spent a lifetime skiing, climbing, hiking, bicycling, canoeing, traveling and exploring together. She trained and raced slalom and giant slalom with Buck Hill’s women’s group. She loved classic, skate, and backcountry cross-country skiing.
Sue is a statistic in the journal “Accidents in North American Mountaineering.” She once triggered and successfully rode an avalanche while on a guided backcountry ski tour in the Purcell Mountains of British Columbia.
Sue also enjoyed boating and fishing at her family’s property in Sioux Narrows, Ontario. She loved extended canoe trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and on the rivers of Minnesota, Idaho and the West.
Sue helped build trails in the Boise foothills and at Bogus Basin. She helped build and maintain four yurts and many miles of trails at the Idaho City Park ’N Ski areas.
She is survived by her husband, Thomas Paul “Chel” Chelstrom.
Memorials to Sue may be made to Winter Wildlands Alliance SnowSchool or to your favorite conservation/-outdoor recreation organization.
