Telemarking: Neither Dead Nor Stupid

The backlash against tele, and the following demise of its popularity in my opinion was brought on by the elitist attitude of too many tele skiers circa 2003.

Regarding the “telemarking ain’t easy” part. Sure it was much harder when alpine skiers were in modern boots and shaped skis while tele skiers were still in leather and 200 cm straight skis. But modern tele equipment has made tele no harder than alpine once you get the hang of it. So, yea, telemarking is hard, only because because skiing is hard. In some ways the lower center of gravity and ability to absorb terrain makes tele easier than alpine.

Telemark skiing is like a ballet dancing. Alpine skiing is like driving the dump truck.

For anyone who might wanna learn to Telemark ski, I can recommend a good book with cartoons.

Yeah Mike! My fave ski book(s) of all time. Telly is far from dead but any time I’m skiing real avalanche terrain truly releaseable bindings are a must. Hopefully the gear will just keep on evolving. Unfortunately a lot of the “new” BC AT skiers are a bunch of elitist douchebags that look good in the parking lot but don’t actually have any BC skills. They’re just resort skiers doing the latest trendy thing since “sidecountry”.

Release is no longer an issue, there are more than a few telemark bindings that will release in an avalanche.

Telemark is hard, most people who try tele, won’t tele because it is so much harder than alpine, but for the few that can tele, it is the turn that makes the ride.

It is a silly discussion, like arguing over whether chicken is better then beef.

Eat what you want, let your skills speak for your gear, cuz diving a Ferrari will not make you Mario Andretti.

I tele for the same reason I fly fish- the perfect turn and the perfect cast come and go with the vaguaries of mood and snow and wind and water. I am the last person to try to convert people to tele, but if asked why I telemark I can say that i got bored with downhill and AT, but I am still climbing the tele mountain after 21 years of working at it. Every slope and every year I learn a little more. And like fly fishing, where casting, tying of the fly, watching the insect hatch and learning to read the swirl of the ripple is as much part of process as landing a fish, so learning to unweight the foot, arrow your body forward with your hand, hold furiously with the oft-neglect little toe of the uphill foot, and yes, falling ridiculously forward over your ski tips like a complete boneless idiot, is part of the beautiful dance with gravity and liquid ice that is telemark skiing.
So hey- who’s to judge? AT, snowboard, tele- it’s all pretty bloody grand. But for me it is, and will always be, the challenging, contrary, and absurdly beautiful telemark turn.

Chances are good that tele is probably at least a little bit stupid and a little bit dead if you felt the need to write an article explaining why it’s not. But who cares? I tele for my own reasons. It’s not a religion – it’s just a different way to get down the hill.

Blah blah blah I cant ski for real so I fixed my heel blah blah blah..

Solid soles make my feet cramp. Flexible soles don’t. And flexible make it easier to walk. Light gear is comfy. I’m 60. I don’t jump cliffs. I don’t ski 50 degree couloirs that are 10 feet wide any more. I’m not climbing the ladder to ski movies. I AM enjoying my time in the mountains. I’ll take grins over grimaces.

Just got back from Copper Mountain where I demoed new Tele gear, my first trip back to the mountains in 15 years. I left my Merrill Supercomps at home thinking i would benefit from newer gear…big mistake. One of the things I loved about tele skiing was the comfort, I hate my foot crammed into a hard plastic boot and my foot falling asleep.

I’m 26, a veteran alpine racer who has charged hard since the age of two. I can’t find any riding buddies who can keep up with me on alpines, so I decided to take it down a notch and try something new. I’ve been very confined to the on-piste hardpack world and after deciding not to to race past the collegiate level, it was time to get out to the back bowls and side country and experience some of nature.

The telemark motion is much more fluid and, from a exercise science viewpoint, much more anatomically correct than alpine. My knees don’t hurt anymore after a day on the slopes and believe me, I need some surgical intervention. (People frequently ask me about the horrible noises coming from my knees whenever I move.) When doing something at the gym, such as a squat, the first thing you are told is never to put your knees in front of your toes. That is exactly the opposite of what you are told on alpine skis. Hop on teles and everything you know is wrong, and for the better.

Not to mention, the boots are awesome! I don’t have to unbuckle after each run and my feet aren’t screaming by day’s end, and the walk to the car doesn’t suck. The comfort of my Scarpa T1s out of the box does not compare with the pain associated with my custom formed and stretched race boots that are supposed to mimic the “shape of my foot.”

I also like that I can crank out trenches on the groomers doing alpine turns if I wish, then drop into some big sweeping tele turns and go back and forth with my mood (just don’t get too far forward!). That usually gets people looking which is kind of cool.

The workout you get on the teles really helps me control my wintertime beer gut and I tend to stay a lot warmer on those brutally cold days. There are a lot more core muscles being engaged, and I tend to have less of my chronic back pain flare up after a day on the teles. There is nothing like tearing through a bump run on teles and realizing how hard you are working when its finished.

I can see why people don’t like the unreleasable bindings, however a crash on teles is not nearly as brutal as an alpine crash… having your heel free adds an extra plane of flexibility and I have never felt like I twisted a knee during one of my many spills. On the other hand, I can say that I’ve definitely tweaked some knees on alpines because, charging like I do, the DIN needs to be cranked way up to 15 – 30 depending on brand to keep them on my feet. Naturally, they won’t reliably release during a crash either and having that attached heel can add some serious torque to the knee. (I could never ski a standard 4-12 DIN range binding because they always pre-release, no matter what manufacturer or model.)

At almost 60, I have spent 30 years on Teles. I wasted the best years of my life on narrow skis! But I will always love the Tele. Really don’t care if it’s not popular, when is popularity a rationale for anything important in life? There are lots of AT skiers out there now but you don’t need skill or strength to ski AT, anyone can get down the hill and it is annoying to find those big wide windshield wiper turns in my powder runs. Why squat when you can dance gracefully? There is nothing like the sinuous continuous glide of the tele, and when you have done it for 30 years you don’t fall much. Touring on Teles is also a pleasure, moving gracefully with the terrain up or down. I am truly more at ease skiing that walking. Gave up on ski areas long ago, because the Tele is a delight in soft back country snow. I will keep dancing and earning my turns ’til the end!

There are some good options. I have Scarpa T4, T3, and T2’s. The T2 and T4 are still being made. I like my T3’s best for comfort and control. T2’s are good for wider skis. T4 is a good light touring option. But really you can’t get the same control with leather. Baking the liners really helps with comfort.

Uhhhh, I’ve been skiing telemark gear for 30 years and I have the option of doing a parallel turn or any varieties of a telemark or combination thereof-duh. It’s about the flexibility of the system-if need be I will do a parallel turn if conditions warrant it. The telemark has far greater fore-aft stability than any AT system. Kids today are lacking a basic history education-the telemark was the first ski turn-invented in Norway. Time to go back to school kids.

are you kidding me…..

I first learned how to cross country ski in college in the midwest (thanks to a girlfriend who got me into it). Then in the early 2000s in grad school I got invited to a ski trip to Taos and wanted to learn how to downhill before going. The university outdoor club I was a member of (UW – Hoofers) did tele skiing so I took it up. I have never worn any other skis to get down a hill to this day. On the trip my friends were asking why I didn’t just learn how to alpine ski. I said, “If I’m going to suck at something, I’d rather suck at something that no one else can do!” Haha. I still sort of suck at tele, but it doesn’t seem to stop me from getting out whenever I can.
I haven’t followed the sport much recently (new gear, etc), but I was thinking to update some gear. I was a little disappointed to find out the notion the tele was dying. I don’t really believe it though. They were saying the same thing about X-C years back too.

Posers.

I like the reference to the sweet spot of the turn.