“Surprisingly, this is the first time I’ve seen Karl getting stitched up at his dad’s veterinary clinic.” Photo: Tal Roberts KARL DIGS SNOW , literally and metaphorically. He’s known for his massive builds and his creativity in designing and crafting features most people wouldn’t even think to attempt. In high school for his senior project, he petitioned the powers that be to let him hang out with the terrain park builders of Sun Valley Resort during its inception. Tal Rob-erts, a photographer and close friend of Karl’s, was one of Sun Valley’s first builders. He remembers a young Karl coming on hill to ride in the cat and help shape jumps. Seeing potential, Tal tasked Karl with crafting designs for some features. Karl came back with a wild rendition of a video-game park run with features neither Tal nor anybody else had ever seen. “There were crazy redirect hips and curved rail features that would be impossible for us to build with a cat,” Tal says. “He had pages and pages [of designs] and tried to explain to me how he would hit it; he knew exactly what trick he would try and where he’d land. It was an impressive show of creativ-ity and his super-methodical thinking.” Years later, Tal has seen Karl’s visions come to life and he’s helped him build and shoot creative features around the world. Karl has refined his approach from a wild urban and table-top hucker in tall tees to become one of the more stylish skiers in the game. In 2012, skier Tanner Hall first saw Crazy Karl sessioning a tabletop takeoff to QP landing at Mt. Bachelor that no one else was hitting. “He’s like the rebirth of Pep, only stronger,” Hall says. By then, Karl, inspired by the likes of Tanner, Pep, and Abma—park skiers who had taken their tricks to backcountry terrain—had been competing in slopestyle with some success. He was backed by brands like ON3P, a longtime sponsor who sold a line of Karl-inspired skis called the Kartel until this season. He shifted away from competition after a few years and few hundred bucks on the Dew Tour. He focused on filming and secured solid showings in segments in films by Poor Boyz and 4bi9 Media. In 2014, Karl went back to contests, won three of them, and earned $25,000. In the last five years, he has po-diumed in all five of the contests he’s entered, including the inaugural Kings and Queens of Corbet’s in Jackson Hole, WY. The thing that mattered most to him? Sharing the win with iconic snowboarder Travis Rice at Kings and Queens. “I’m super-stoked on the integration of skiing and snow-boarding,” Karl says about the event. “I want to be an ambas-sador for the [snowsports] industry as whole. I think it’s fun to use snowboarders as a form of competition to see how we can push each other and progress our sports.” Despite his competitive success, Karl sees his greatest achievement as being able to buy a snowmobile, build a trailer, and gain the knowledge to read weather and find the best zones for his creations. He’s put time and effort into learning how to access the backcountry safely and strategi-cally and is quick to give credit to his local crew, Jeremy Lato, Michael Franco, WingTai Berrymore, and Collin Collins, who have helped him get out there. In 2018 the stars aligned for Karl and he realized a major career goal while on a film trip to Revelstoke, BC with Matchstick Productions. Also on that trip was his childhood hero, Mark Abma. Filming with Abma was 16 years in the making, but being able to integrate tricks into high-consequence backcountry lines and adding bits of his own flavor was on Karl’s bucket list. He also wanted to be filmed with a Cineflex. Most notably, though, was being bucked by a helicopter’s rotor wash while dropping into his line. Murray Wais from MSP was quick to apologize, but Karl could not have been more stoked. 070 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 13, Issue 2: Page 70
