REMEMBERING CARL SKOOG: A 90-minute interview with brothers Lowell and Gordy

POWDER: Since pictures sell a place…

Lowell: Right. And there are places, for example, in the desert southwest where he was very careful to never—and I think this is a general ethic among people who photograph in these areas—say exactly where the photograph was taken. Because the special character of those places, especially in some of the Native and archaeological areas, can be destroyed.

Gordy: I have a personal experience that relates to that. We have in our house the classic Havasu Falls image—and it caught my attention to the point where I asked Carl questions about the place, like was it worth going to and that sort of thing. It stuck in my head for a long time to go down there. And coincidentally, it happened to be that I was down there when Carl was on Mercedario. But it was his image that drove me there. And my experience was that it was a place that was overrun, that was trashed quite a bit by hordes of people, yet, under normal circumstances would not be that easy to get to. It’s a long walk. But due to the volume of interest, the native Indians there have allowed themselves to kind of compromise their asset. They carry people’s gear down, they fly them in by helicopter. And it’s people like, well, it’s Carl’s images, in part, that have contributed to that—and the Internet, too, in making those images so readily available.

Lowell: I had a conversation with a fellow who was doing something for Backcountry magazine and we got into this subject. Fortunately he sent me what he was proposing to write and I corrected him because he said something about how Carl and I worried about the mountains being overrun as backcountry skiing became more popular. I would back up and say that wasn’t really it. It wasn’t being overrun by people. We want more people to ski, that’s cool. But it was being overrun by information. From my own experience there’s this wonderful sense of discovery you can get in backcountry skiing when you look at a map and go, “Hmmm, what’s that like?” And you find it out on your own. Carl and I called places like these our Personal Discovery Zones. It’s like, if you meet somebody out there, cool, say “Have a great day,” shake their hand, but don’t put it in a guide book and don’t put it in the “150 Secret Spots on the North Cascades Highway.” That’s essentially the book we always dreaded that someone was going to write.

POWDER: Carl is fondly remembered for his quirks: habitual over-packing, his winter driving skills, his eating habits. What memories will you look back on years from now and still laugh about?

Lowell: Well, a lot of this came out at the memorial. There were certain things about food. If there was free food he could be pretty shameless.

Gordy: He was a good grazer. French fries—this cracks me up because it was so true. French fries were just a carrying vessel for ketchup.

Lowell: We called him the ketchup kid when he was a kid because he loved ketchup.

Gordy: It was about bulk, not necessarily quality.

Lowell: When he sort of went pro and spent all his time up at Mt. Baker, he and I didn’t ski that much together any more, but before that we did a lot of lift skiing together and I would always bring a lunch because I’d want to keep my energy up. I feel like I ski better. And he would never bring a lunch. Even though he ate tons in town, out in the hills he wouldn’t bring that much food or he’d just bring bagels on these hikes and mountaineering trips. And I would ask, “How do bagels sustain you?” So I would always share my lunch up at Crystal because you’ve got to have energy to ski longer. If there was free food around, he would just scarf it.

Gordy: I remember in the early days he would get this kind of longing look as he watched you eat, looking at your plate. He’d say something like, “Gee that looks good.” And that would be the end of it. Hopefully you’d get what his message was and then if you didn’t finish he’d go, “You gonna eat that? You done?” It became his joke. At outdoor shows there are free sample foods all around and I’d see him at those shows. I’d pass him in the hall and he’d have a plate in his hand and he’d say (whispering), “Yeah down there at the Danner booth they have free waffles. Head on down there.” (Laughs) He had it all scoped out.

Lowell: Yeah I ran into Dan Cauthorn (a W.L. Gore product rep) and I think he had the impression that Carl was really a dirt bag.

(Laughter)

I told this story at the memorial, and I don’t know that anybody but my wife and I find it funny, but back when he was a ski instructor—we were all ski instructors in high school and college—

Powder: Where at?

Lowell: Initially at Ski Acres and then Crystal. (To Gordy) Carl never taught at Sun Valley, did he?

Gordy: He went down there to teach and that’s when he got his ACL injury and he never got a chance to.

Lowell: That’s right. We all made pilgrimages to Sun Valley, spent the winter there during college. Anyway, back in high school I think it was, we were all sort of mogul bashers, skied the lifts and the moguls, and one day he came back and he had this scrape on his chin and the beginning of a shiner, and I was like, “What happened to you?” The supervisors at the ski school would come up a wacky ideas for clinics sometimes. They don’t really want to teach so they just go out and ski. So one of the supervisors decided to do an aggressive skiing clinic. The idea was to get all the timid instructors out and kind of push their envelope a little. So Carl tagged along with girlfriend at the time at this clinic. And Carl didn’t need that kind of encouragement. (Laughter) So he had totally blown out trying to be even more aggressive than he usually was.