Klaus Obermeyer was looking forward to his 103rd birthday on Friday for a long, long time.
The Aspen icon and his family hosted a spectacular celebration when he reached the century mark in 2019, but Klaus has been saying for years that his 103rd would be especially memorable. It marks his 100th year on skis.
Klaus celebrated with friends at the Obermeyer ski wear headquarters at the Aspen Airport Business Center on Friday. Alpine Echo provided music with a Bavarian flare. And of course there was apple strudel and whipped cream.
Klaus discussed his special anniversary earlier this week with the Aspen Daily News. It is an amazing tale that confirms how a simple twist of fate can steer an entire lifetime. Klaus got into skiing thanks to wooden orange crates. And he displayed a tinkerer’s aptitude at age 3 that would serve him well as an inventor of multiple innovations in the ski industry and his work with his ski wear company, Obermeyer.
Here’s Klaus telling the story in his own words.
Aspen Daily News: You sound like you’re in good spirits.
Klaus: Time flies, you know. Since I learned how to ski, it was the second of December (in 1922), it’s been 100 years that I have been in the snow. I started to ski when I was 3. Now I’m 103. So I’ve followed the snow, mainly with skis all my life.
ADN: That is one heck of an accomplishment.
Klaus: Well, somehow it’s a lot of luck with it. When I was 3 years old I made my own skis. My dad used to buy oranges from Italy. They came in crates that were made out of chestnut wood. (The boards) were very thin and you could bend them. I had two of those boards and nailed two of my best pair of house shoes on them. I took a string and pulled the front of the board up and wound it around my knees so I had tips. Those were my first skis. It was just lucky that my dad got oranges by the crate.
ADN: Was there a ski hill in your village or where did you ski?
Klaus: Out the side of the house, downhill. We were living in such a beautiful place. We kind of had some land there and the big mountain so we could ski to the backdoor of the kitchen.
ADN: Did other members of your family ski as well?
Klaus: Yeah, my dad, he learned to ski when he was like 65 or something like that. My mom learned how to ski but mainly cross-country. There were not too many adult people skiing.
ADN: What inspired you, what got you interested?
Klaus: What inspired me is I went for a walk with my dad through some houses and some hills and there were two people on skis, the first ones that I saw in my life. They were sliding down on top of the snow. It was just an unbelievably beautiful thing that you could do that, instead of walking through it you could slide on it. It was just terrific and that was the inspiration to make the skis, the boards that I could slide on.
ADN: What was the name of your town or village?
Klaus: It is Oberstaufen. It was a wonderful, wonderful place for me and my little brother to grow up. He also skied. I was the one that started racing when there was a chance. And I ended up racing in the four-way championships. You had slalom, downhill, cross-country and jumping. The four together. That was a great thing that I placed first in that. I got a good name in town because I was the fastest guy on skis. (To the best of his recollection he was in his early 20s at the time.)
ADN: Do you recall the first time you went to a lift-served ski resort?
Klaus: There were no real lift-served ski resorts to speak of. They called Oberstaufen the snow hole of the Alps, there was always snow, more snow than in other places somehow. It was a very great time to be in the Alps. Those were great mountains, you know. And then when we were growing up, we could climb one weekend one mountain and another weekend another mountain.
ADN: So did you grow up skinning up the mountains?
Klaus: Yeah, skinning up. We had a wax that was a downhill and climbing wax combination. You were able to climb with it but you could also ski downhill with it. That was a nice thing.
ADN: Were you thrilled with skiing right off the bat?
Klaus: Absolutely. It was a way of life. To be able to slide on top of snow, it’s just an incredible thing. You could go places that were otherwise impossible. You would have had to have snowshoes to go out into the snow. It opened up the whole backcountry for loving it and at that time, in the winter people were so cold they were sitting on the bench next to the stove, staying warm. They didn’t go outside. When the skiing started, that was the first time the people in the winter went outside when they didn’t have to. The mountains were so beautiful, the trees with snow on them. It was a fairytale kind of life. Lots of sports. I liked fencing and swimming, of course, and diving from the board. We had a pond that was our swimming pool. There were just so many wonderful things.
ADN: Will you be able to ski this season?
Klaus: Not yet. I’ll wait until they open Buttermilk. Now I don’t quite have to speed any more on skis so I take it pretty easy.
ADN: How has the last year gone for you? Has everything gone well?
Klaus: Everything goes well. We live on a beautiful ranch. I’m still involved in the business. It’s just a very, very good life. The great thing in our lives, I think, is the freedom of perception. We have the freedom of how we wish to perceive things around us. We can perceive them negatively or we can perceive them positively. I’m trying to be positive. That’s nice, that’s working and that’s great, you know.