TOP TO BOTTOM “Filming a segment being pulled via winch through rivers is a good example of Karl’s drive to ski everything available. After piecing together quite a few successful pulls up and down the snowbanks, skimming high-speed turns across the water, and dropping down little rapids, the river finally bit back and threw Karl straight to his elbow on the rocky riverbed.” Photo: Tal Roberts The Araucaria is the national tree of Chile. It is also known as the monkey puzzle tree because someone once said, “it would puzzle a monkey to climb that.” Karl’s rodeos do not puzzle the Araucaria. Photo: Tal Roberts “It was beautiful to see him get away with some of the shit he did,” Hans says, recalling Karl’s mischievous spirit with pride. Stephen remembers riding the chairlift with little Karl and an older guy who claimed to have just cleared the infamous Plaza Gap on Bald Mountain the run before. Karl, trying to impress his older brothers and their buddies, didn’t tell any-one and attempted to hit the gap his next run. He came up short with a knee to the face and fractured his orbital bone. Highly concussed, Karl started vomiting during the tobog-gan ride down, but couldn’t move his arms to wipe his face. Luckily, the patroller looked back right as he began choking and immediately flipped the sled over mid-run. Through all his youthful shenanigans, no one can really recall when he officially earned the nickname “Crazy Karl.” But he certainly had a defiant spirit. Karl spent some time on the Sun Valley freestyle team, where he won every major mogul contest he entered from ages 8 to 13 years old. He also rebelled against his coaches and that regimented style of competition. “I didn’t want anything to do with that mogul skiing bullshit,” Karl says, “and you can quote me on that.” Karl was also unashamed to state his opinions and goals. He recalls watching professional skier Mark Abma in a ski flick at the Sun Valley Opera House at 13. After the film, Karl, practically in tears, approached Abma to tell him, “One day I’m going to be in a movie with you.” In high school, Sun Valley Resort didn’t have a terrain park, so he transferred to the Lowell Whitman School in Steamboat Springs, CO. He knew that Pep Fujas, a child-hood idol, had gone there, so he wrote in an application for financial aid stating that he was inspired to come because of Pep. It worked. “His ability to focus on what he wants to do, why, and I’m going to show you how was evident from a very young age,” Stephen says. Despite his loose reputation, his brother Luke says that even among a doctor, lawyer and statistician, Karl is the smartest sibling. Hans also cites his loyalty to his friends, explaining how Karl’s always made sure his friends came up in the ski industry with him. And his uncanny ability to rally a crew is something Mattias believes has kept the fire burning and his career thriving to this day. As Karl, now 29 years old, says, “When you’re out filming and do well on the day, everyone wins.” Indeed, Karl considers his current practice of skiing a team sport, saying, “Whether you’re fixing a landing, getting the second camera angle, schlepping tripods, doubling on sleds, on radios, all players need to be connected to get shit done.” THAT MORNING IN HAINES , Karl stopped strategically at the bottom of his line in a safe zone above some icefall with eyes on Chris as he dropped. They had closely inspected the bergschrunds at the bottom of the face and knew it was best to exit to the right. As Chris jammed right at the bottom of his line, so did his fast-moving sluff from above. As Murphy’s Law would have it, in the midst of Chris’ sluff battle to keep himself upright, his board caught the lip of the bergschrund, which sent him backward and upside down into the crack where the slope met the glacier below. His sluff— hundreds of pounds of snow—quickly filled in above him, burying him in a matter of seconds. Karl was the first to react and started hiking uphill at a fero-cious pace. His recent training as a wilderness first responder and in multiple avalanche courses kicked in. Reggie couldn’t see the bottom of their lines from his perch above, but they had discussed a clean path over in case of a worst-case scenario. Not knowing how deep the schrund was, we all held our breath. Seconds seemed like minutes, and minutes ticked away. We had the last-seen point still frozen in the monitors of our hovering drone, but as the helicopter fired up to bring our sec-ond guide, Joe, in for backup, we pulled back from the face—the wrong move in hindsight, as we should have stuffed that drone into the slope where Chris disappeared—but luckily we had Karl on the charge. He had eyes on where Chris went down and shouted to Reggie traversing down to the last-seen point. Reggie immediately got a beacon signal and pulled up within two meters of the barely visible lip of the bergschrund. Karl had his shovel out and was ready to do what he does better than most: shovel and move snow. The rescue was nearing the time we hate to consider, 15 minutes, which is when the likelihood of survival in a burial decreases dramatically by the minute. The helicopter toed into the slope to drop Joe off, who needed to put Reggie on a rope as he dug deeper into the crevasse. With Joe on belay, and Reggie delving deep into the crack, snow removal became the priority. Karl hurled snow out of that hole like all his brothers were buried below. Karl Fostvedt 067
The Ski Journal Volume 13, Issue 2: Page 67
