RIP: Mitch Weber—Telemark’s Visionary
(1956-2016)

Mitch Weber’s contribution to telemark skiing

by Cesare
 
The news of Mitch Weber’s passing hit me hard today. I knew only recently that he had been battling cancer but had seen a picture somewhere in which Mitch’s face looked gaunt. I wondered what the reason could be, knowing that the answer could be devastating.

Nearly every person I have met and formed a relationship based around skiing since the year 2000 is connected to me directly through Mitch. Everyone I ski with I have met as a result of the connections that Mitch Weber forged or are people I already knew then who also knew Mitch. I know people in every corner of the world who tele because of Mitch. It would be impossible for me to imagine what my life would be if not for the many, many lifelong friends he introduced me to. Looking around at posts on Facebook and earnyourturns.com today I can see people in regions all over the globe saying exactly the same thing. Let me just tell you, Mitch Weber cares that you telemark.

Not only did he bring us together, he tolerated our misbehaviors and wielded administrative authority with a surprising light hand, only to enforce a small number of rules. Mitch was a great leader in setting a tone on the forum of welcoming, decorous, collegiality. How hard he worked to ensure that the site did not devolve into a vulgar sausage fest where women would feel uncomfortable participating. In this he was steadfast. Mitch was a friend to all and insofar as the forum was his party, he did an artful job of setting the tone and allowing people the freedom to be themselves. It was a narrow and delicate arête he strode and I don’t think he always was treated with the same grace he showed to all. The way the forum finally went the way it did was not his fault and I’ll leave it at this: we were all to blame.
But he did it, all of it, because he was a visionary.

Far beyond the niche market that we were, Mitch knew something about social media and how it could create a community of practice and an organic repository of knowledge. He knew, and eventually convinced even a miserly retrogrouch like me that if this beautiful way of skiing was going to survive, it needed a healthy and innovating industry to make the tools better and remove a lot of the obstacles to entry. He knew the industry needed to know how passionate the community was about telemark skiing and needed to hear publicly from us what we wanted. Without that, we might not have all the gear choices we have today.

I loved his interviews with industry leaders at trade shows. His infectious enthusiasm and easy manner brought out the best in his subjects and you could see that they knew they were speaking directly to us, their lifeblood. I am constantly reminded of a list Mitch made describing the community’s dream binding. At the time, maybe 2003, I thought, this has about no chance of ever happening. I can’t recall everything that was on the list, but it sure seems to me the bindings emerging right now are very close to giving us a number of legitimate choices in achieving that dream.

Without Mitch giving the market a very loud voice that was impossible to ignore, so much of this could have been abandoned at the prototype stage, if not the back of an envelope. Without Mitch, telemark would not be what it is today.

Mitch creating this community—a community that inspired an industry to take on the challenging mechanical requirements of the telemark turn for a niche market and a singular skill that is not exactly easy to learn—foreshadowed the best of what we see in social media today.

The power of social media to create a movement and spread an idea like a virus fascinated him. He and I talked a lot about Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point and Gladwell’s idea that it takes three types of people to make an idea spread: connectors, mavens, and salespeople. I always told him he was all three.

Mitch went to all the big competitions as he took his van on numerousTelemarktips.com World Tours of North America. He posted trailers for all the smokin’ tele freeskiing videos and featured the rising stars in the sport, as well as us, the members of the community, prominently in his videos and front-page pictures. Let’s not forget that the venerable Powderwhores got their start on Telemarktips.com.

We telemarkers are now an outsized source of influence in the ski industry and we have a lot of dedicated people to thank for making sure the industry knew that telemark skiing was alive and very cool. Mitch was an absolutely necessary bridge between the market and the gear makers. We are all grateful to him for all that he’s done. But my favorite thing about Mitch is his humanity. He could see the best in everybody and tried every day through his example to bring out the best of our community. That and the times we skied together and his hair are what I will remember best.

I toured Saturday with Dostie and though we didn’t know at the time, I felt like my skiing was just a little bit off. It was a great day with perfect deep powder, little wind, and many face shots. But something was just missing. I couldn’t put my finger on it but I wasn’t quite on top of my skis. I even tried to blame the equipment Dostie was letting me test. More likely there was a connection in the ether shaking loose, something close but unseen in the spiritual world adjusting. All I know is I will carry a piece of Mitch with me every time I go skiing from now on. I won’t let that connection waver ever again. My condolences go out to all family and friends of Mitch Weber. He was truly one of a kind and I’ll miss him forever.

© 2016