MOUNTAIN LIFE - Coast Mountains | Fall Winter 2019

108 “Things evolved quickly once I developed the Kye Shapes line with 4frnt Skis,” he says, “especially for big mountain skiing. Back in the day it was easy to get going fast, but to shut down your speed with control and hit features on the way down was quite difficult. Once I had a ski I could slow down and speed up with, I progressed a lot.” The design phase, according to Petersen, is where the magic happens. “The most essential piece of tech in our shop isn’t even in the shop,” he says. “It’s the computerized drawings that we create, working with our engineers on the CAD program to line up the curves and make sure they all match.” After nearly a decade in business, Foon skis currently offers eight designs, one of which—The Moma Lisa—is a tribute to Foon’s wife, Lisa Korthals, who died in an avalanche in 2018. Kye Shapes, after its first year of research and development, is offering two ski models: The Numinous and The Metamorph. “The Numinous came out of the need for our first ski to be the kind of thing that the pros would thrive on,” Petersen says. “A design capable of skiing the biggest lines in Alaska or the deepest day at Blackcomb—it’s the ultimate backcountry weapon. The Metamorph is more of an all-mountain ski. It’s lightweight and a bit more friendly, good for long days in the backcountry when you’re hiking a lot and may come across different conditions.” Petersen and Foon can discuss the nuances of their ski designs for hours: blend curves, radiuses, rockers, cambers, sidecuts. But their collaboration extends far beyond the walls of the warehouse. The duo has skied lines in the Wedge group together. They’ve weathered storms in the Waddington range together. And now they’re setting a new trajectory for big mountain skiing together. They live and breathe the entire process, with their own skiing acting as the driving force behind their designs. Shaping skis keeps their eyes looking down the fall line, always calculating what’s coming up next. But as the two of them work a piece of their own history into every pair of skis that they make, the process also keeps them firmly rooted in the past. In 1994, Trevor Petersen helped self-rescue Foon after an avalanche in the Tantalus Range broke both his legs. After Trevor’s passing, Foon and Pehota returned to the range in 1999, skiing a dream line together just shy of the summit of Mount Tantalus. Eleven years later, the film All.I.Can was released, featuring Kye Petersen skiing the same range. “It brought a tear to my eye,” Foon says. “Here’s Trevor’s son throwing down a line that goes well beyond what we were doing. It felt like some sort of circle was finally complete.” Those links—to history, themountains, the community, and each other— are what makes that unassuming warehouse outside of Pemberton much more than a simple ski factory. That space represents the past, present and future all under a single roof. But perhaps most importantly, that workshop has the power to send Foon and Petersen both backwards and forwards through time. “I think my dad would be really stoked to see Johnny and I doing this together,” says Petersen. “And Johnny’s always been optimistic about this whole process because both of us—heart and soul—are meant to be working together.” Ski legend and mentor Johnny Foon checking the grain on some of the locally-harvested cedar used in Foon Skis and Kye Shapes. BLAKE JORGENSON Plenty of powderhounds sought a more efficient way of skiing, but it wasn’t until Shane McConkey took a pair of water skis down some Alaskan spines that fat skis really caught on.