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

Lowell: I was always pretty comfortable with his judgment. From years of experience I didn’t feel he was going to do anything crazy or stupid.

POWDER: Regarding the accounts of the accident, it sounds like it was one of those things—caught an edge, whatever, something that could happen at any time or hardly ever happens…

Lowell: Clearly the terrain they were on was dangerous enough. To be able to fall as far as he did it was steep enough to be dangerous. But it was certainly within the ability of both those guys. So yeah we don’t really know. It doesn’t sound like the snow conditions were such that it was bad judgment to be trying to ski.

POWDER: Have either of you met with Rene since he came back?

Gordy: Yeah. I was very appreciative of Rene being there and what he did for us as a family and for Carl. Rene was an incredible friend and asset down there. And when he came back he showed us images of their trip and gave us the opportunity to experience it along with Carl and that was very cool. Rene has been an outstanding climbing partner and it reminds me that Carl picked a great guy to go down there with.

POWDER: He’s someone you’ve known for a long time?

Lowell: We didn’t know him well. We knew of him quite a bit. I did one climb kind of by accident on Glacier Peak with him. I was with two other friends and Carl and Rene showed up at the trailhead. So we all five went up Glacier. I had a good impression from him.

POWDER: Are you or anyone in your family planning to go to Mercedario?

Lowell: I think Maria might, Carl’s off and on girlfriend. I think she said something at the memorial about wanting to go down there.

Gordy: As I saw the pictures from Rene and Carl’s trip I thought, “Wow, looks like a cool place. I’d like to go skiing there.” And in a certain regard it’s tweaked my interest much like the Havasu Falls photo did. Here’s another circumstance where those images caused me to think about, you know, I probably need to go down there and go see what Carl was seeing, what he liked so much about it down there. He’s done it, I haven’t.

POWDER: What do you think will be Carl’s legacy?

Lowell: Locally speaking I guess it would be taking adventurous, imaginative trips into interesting areas. As far as his photography, during that period—say the mid ‘80s though about 2000—Carl was taking the best pictures of anyone in the northwest of wilderness skiing, backcountry skiing. He would go out and deliberately get pictures of people skiing among seracs, glaciers, and jumping off of cornices and stuff. He was defining the look of that decade in the northwest, defining how people here thought about ski mountaineering and backcountry skiing. He had the most compelling pictures of it. And the people that he skied with expressed—and it was kind of touching—just how much he taught them. He was the photo guy but he was the guy with the mountaineering experience. I don’t know how much they knew it before they started skiing with him, but Carl was more experienced in the mountains than just about anyone he was shooting. I can remember, though, he was like, “You know I’m trying to get these Baker guys to go on mountaineering trips, get them to camp out.” He’d go out with me and it was kind of a relief for him because we’d go out on a mountaineering trip. I think to some extent he showed some of those guys what was possible outside the ski area, and mentored them in more of the mountaineering side of skiing.

Gordy: Here’s my legacy. The images are there, pretty clear to see. But what Carl reminds me of is living your passion. That you can do it. You don’t have to go down the every day path like everyone else does. And when you live your passion you can be a happy, smiley guy. Yeah it can be tough, but ultimately Carl was probably the happiest guy in the world because look at what he got to do every day. So that reminds me, inspires me, to not live the ordinary every day life, to be purposeful about it, so that’s his legacy. And when I think about South America, you know Carl you had it right. I need to go do that. Or whatever place he had the opportunity to go to, it’s my intention to try to have those opportunities too.

Lowell: You’ve probably gotten the impression that our family is pretty straight laced or conservative—not necessarily politically, but conservative in terms of pretty mainstream lifestyles, really. And there were times certainly when my mom was kind of like, “Oh Carl, why can’t you go back to doing engineering or have a regular job, something that will give you a regular income…”

POWDER: “Why can’t you be more like your brothers?”

(Laughter)

Lowell: Yeah, sort of this sense…you know none of us are driven by money. We all have pretty normal jobs. It’s not like money makes you a success, but there is this sense of stability, and the family is fairly orthodox. And Carl wasn’t…that wasn’t his way. And we worried about him some. And yet to me the thing that’s kind of stunning, after all the outpouring of people on the Web and the emails and the cards and everything—it’s amazing how much influence he had. And I think that’s pretty profound. There’s success. When you’ve made that much of a ripple in the world, when you weren’t making a lot of money at it but… That’s success. I think that’s a different way of saying what Gordy was saying.

Gordy: And that’s what our mom has come to realize through this whole process. She was always, “Oh I wish he worked for Boeing…” But now she’s a proud parent realizing how many people he impacted and how much they cared about him even if they didn’t know him. Lowell has talked before about the power of the image, but I think for me the image gets your attention and then you find out about the person.