As told by Karl Fostvedt

The seed was planted when JP Auclair sent the loop in Propaganda. Flashforward to 2013, the year 4bi9 dropped All Damn Day. After talking about venturing into the world of “over-vert” all season, Dale Talkington stepped up and sent an underflip on a handbuilt topless loop. Dale’s take on the setup was super rad. John Ware and I built another one the following season, but one thing lead to another, and we never hit it.

A few weeks later, The West Coast Session built one, albeit unknowingly. Ethan Stone constructed one of the sickest West Coast Session features to date. His idea was to build transitions on pretty much every corner of every part of the jump. Sure enough, Dale and I started playing around on the side cube, and before we knew it there was a topless loop session pappin’ off. After that, we were sure that the world of ski jumps had evolved. I’ve been fiending to play around with more features like it ever since.

Flashforward to December of 2014. I pitched an idea to [my ski sponsor] ON3P to get a filmer and a winch out to my hometown of Ketchum, Idaho to hit a bunch of features around town that I’ve always wanted to session. One thing lead to another, and we got a filmer out there, Jasper Newton, in early December. However, the winch wasn’t slated to arrive from Alaska until mid-month. I was showing Jasper around town, and decided to take him up Trail Creek, a pass into Sun Valley that closes during the winter.

Some redneck had stolen the metal gate where they close the road in the winter (most likely to scrap the metal), so the pass was open a couple weeks later than usual. I have some nice tires on my ’98 Chevy, so we popped her into four wheel drive and rallied up the unplowed pass. On the way back down the pass, there was an epic sunset, and we realized we needed to shoot something up there. There was only about a foot of snow, so I called my Mom and asked to borrow her snowblower. She gave me the okay, and the next day we started blowing snow into a pile in one of the turnouts on the way up. Eight days later, the winch showed up and we had some pretty cool shots in the bag. After dialing in a few different tricks, I decided to throw my Garmin VIRB on to showcase the in air perspective.

Stay tuned for the full Idaho piece that will either be incorporated into one of my segments this year, or dropped online for free courtesy of ON3P.

Related: Crazy Karl talks pro model skis, summer at Mt. Hood and stayin’ alive