December 28th, 1989, Skier of the Improbable

In the AT to Tele ratio thread Lowell posted a message he wrote on Usenet in 1988 on the merits of the Telemark vs Parallel turn for beginner skiers. I was intrigued by this post (which was written when I was 9!) so I broke out Google Groups and started going thru the ancient history of rec.skiing. It looks like the archives are somewhat incomplete, as I can't (at least not yet) find Lowell's post. However, I did find a very interesting gem. The only reference to this profile on Lowell's personal website is a brief note as part of a larger review of various copies of older Powder Magazines; his website humbly makes no mention of the moniker he was crowned!<br><br>

<br>Newsgroups: rec.skiing <br>From: robe...@cs.columbia.edu (Kenneth Roberts)
Date: 28 Dec 89 14:02:04 GMT
Local: Thurs, Dec 28 1989 6:02 am  
Subject: Improbable Skier, lowell@tc.fluke.com


from Powder magazine, February 1990:


                Lowell Skoog is the Northwest's
                   "Skier of the Improbable"

In the 1970s he was your typical ski bum and instructor, but in the '80s
Lowell Skoog emerged as top gun of the daring high-elevation ski traverse
across the North Cascades.


The transformation began when Skoog, 33, skied the Ptarmigan Traverse ---
a famous mountaineering route threading through a 40-mile section of
glacier-armored peaks.  He found ski mountaineering a wonderful mixture
of his two loves: downhill skiing and climbing.  Since that first traverse,
he has systematically ticked off bold, new routes throughout the range.


Skoog, an electrical engineer by schooling and a software engineer by vocation,
must also have a healthy affinity for civil engineering.  To hear him talk
about the many new routes he's skied, you'd think he was building a highway
through the mountains.  "I like the idea of using skis to carve a continuous
line through the mountains."


And carve he has.  Besides the Ptarmigan, Skoog, along with his brother Carl
and a small band of cohorts, has plucked away at remote, 40-mile sections
of the range.  Some of the juicier plums include the Isolation Traverse
and Thunder High Route (two different lines extending north of the
Ptarmigan Traverse), and the Suiattle High Route (a line extending south
of the Ptarmigan).  Link up Skoog's different week-long traverses and
they form a continuous line from the Canadian border to the south side
of Glacier Peak --- a distance of 160 skiing miles and a rollercoaster ride
with a gain and corresponding loss of 55,000 vertical feet.


While blazing this line, Skoog's most impressive feat is undoubtedly
contending with the barrier formed by the Pickets, a sub-range of the North
Cascades some climbers call the most rugged and remote peaks in the lower 48.
Traversing through the Pickets is like a yo-yo ride over a colossal saw
blade --- a blade whose teeth have one vertical mile of relief.


The Pickets are littered with cliffs and booby trapped with crevasses.
Enter this hall of horrors when unstable snow blankets the slopes and
avalanches sloughing off the flocked fangs will snuff you out.  Likewise,
if stormy or soupy weather catches you deep in the range, you're stuck in
purgatory, unable to follow the straight and narrow path forward or back.
Add to all this the descent of 45-degree slopes with 45-pound packs, the
crossings under ice walls ready to calve and the traverses above cliff bands
where a slip spells "Taps", and the route takes on new meaning.


Skoog maintains that, except in rare places, the route was not extreme.
"Skis were appropriate tools for the job," he says.  "It's not like we
tried to slab climb with roller skates."


OK, so "Skier of the Impossible" he's not.  But those who know the Pickets
don't hesitate to dub Skoog "Skier of the Improbable."  After all, no one
has ventured to repeat his 1985 accomplishment.


                                       --- Andy Dappen


[There's also a color picture of Lowell looking good skiing a steep slope, <br> and a photo by Lowell of brother Carl following on a traverse, with <br> a background of jagged peaks floating on the clouds.]<br>

<br>

Don't know if you'll find what you're looking for but at the bottom of this page are three links to usenet and other searches for Skoog's posts. It used to be called "Lowell Spews" or something like that. The link titles are a little more tame now:<br><br> www.alpenglow.org/about/lowell-skoog/index.html