Ode to a ski god: Kare Anderson seeks deeper slopes in Asgard

This ones for Kare

Kare Anderson

Not sure how to write this post as whatever I write will never do Kare justice as his life was an awesome one.  For me it all started when I worked at Garmont Ski Boots in the early 1990's.  I was the king of the junk jobs at that point in my life.  A junk job being anything that fell between the cracks and yet needed a fairly educated hand in control.  One day while waxing skis in the back room my boss waved me over telling me he had a job for me to do.  He handed me 20 bucks and said that a guy named Kare was coming to visit and ask for some support for a ski race that he was putting on at Bromley Mountain.  It was explained that Kare was a Telemark skiing evangelist and that I should listen to what he had to say.  Sure enough, Kare showed up in full force his trademark Norwegian Cake and his smile in hand of course.  We toasted a bit of Aquivite and ate Kare's cake. The whole business shut down for the ceremony.  Then we went out to lunch.

While eating I learned some of Kare's story.  He has lived all over the world, grew up in Norway and lived in India as a tailor to the elite.  He skied in Kashmir and his stories were wonderful, they inspired me and made me dream and still make me dream.  Of course we donated product to Kare as we knew that the money it made went directly to teaching people how to tele ski, Kare truly created life long skiers who were passionate about the sport.

I had the pleasure of being present at many, many more Kare cakes, some at Garmont, some at Rossignol and some at Karhu.  All of them were special and all them were looked forward too.  I also got to ski with Kare on a few occasions and I wish I could remember all the great comments he had as he skied as they always drew a smile on my face.

Kare's friends are all getting together this week to celebrate his life.  I can only imagine the names and faces that will attend that party, I truly wish I was there and could attend, but since I cant, I will settle with a quite moment and crank a few turns to his memory instead....