Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

I'm struggling with tele turns in powder that's up to or above my knees. My skis end up crossed and I fall over. Any general tips on turns in powder?
I'm thinking that I'm letting my front ski come along for the ride and not moving it at all, which works fine on consolidated stuff, but in powder I need push that front ski through the snow and force it to stay parallel with my trailing ski? Does that make sense?

Just like skiing on packed snow you need enough weight on each ski to make the ski work. Deep powder will punish you if you don't. I learned a lot about pressuring my skis skiing powder.

The tips would be, try to get better centered and make slight, long radius turns as opposed to tight ones, if terrain allows it.

What skis are you on?
How are they crossing? Are you so splayed out that the trailing tip is crossing over the leading tail?

I have found the deeper the snow, the straighter down the fall line I ski. Even alpine skiing in deep snow and steep terrain trying to turn too far across the fall line is not a good idea. As a matter of fact, stopping was something that took a few turns to accomplish.
I would just try making turns straighter down the fall line.

fisheater wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:28 am

I have found the deeper the snow, the straighter down the fall line I ski. Even alpine skiing in deep snow and steep terrain trying to turn too far across the fall line is not a good idea. As a matter of fact, stopping was something that took a few turns to accomplish.
I would just try making turns straighter down the fall line.

Fisheater is spot on about keeping the turns shallow and down the fall line. Speed/momentum are your friends especially on narrower skis that dive deeper into the snow. Some people become more hesitant in powder (read slow/careful) rather than more aggressive at committing to the fall line speed. You may actually need to apply less pressure to the skis to keep momentum especially in lower angle pow.

It's pow! Let them run! It doesn't hurt to fall in pow!

The skinnier the skis, the faster you need to go in powder.

I mostly agree with others here... but say you're skiing dense trees and it's pretty steep and just going faster isn't really going to work out. I had some moments like that this weekend and yeah, it starts to get a little tough. It's going to start feeling like you need to backseat a little to keep the tips rising but now you're in that situation you describe where your skis aren't weighted equally and they start going different directions.

This might not be "best practice" but I find myself only being in full deep stance for a tiny bit of the time. Normally it's smooth transitions back and forth, but if i'm really needing to keep things under wraps in pow I spend much more time close to parallel--like I stall out in the middle of the transition between linked turns. I think the other thing in deep pow (especially when it's as heavy as it is on the coast) is that you really, really, really need to ride the boards, not steer them. You've got no chance of muscling your skis around when they're deep.

But really it's just more fun to find some more open space, or lower angle slopes, to just open it up and let the speed keep you on top.

Unless the snow is heavy enough to stop me, the last thing I want to do is get my weight back excessively onto the back ski. The front ski turns well when submerged, you just have to be a little patient with it. Particularly in steeper terrain in trees, I turn way better if I'm putting more than 50% of my weight on the front ski. It's the one doing most of the turning. It becomes a bit of a fine line, as the difference between enough weight and too much weight shrinks down, but the biggest mistake I see is too much weight out back when it's deep/steep.

Turns are dynamic enough that weight shifts have to occur. There are instants skiing the bumps where 100% of my weight is on the front ski. There's never a time when I want my rear ski weighted like that. I'll get more than 50% on the rear ski in a hard carve (but only because it's a mistake I have yet to overcome), and I'll have more weight on the ski with the dropped knee if I'm skiing switch, but that's about it. In the early stages of learning the telemark turn it's often the case that the skier doesn't have enough weight over the rear ski, but that doesn't mean you always have to weigh it down.

It just depends.

spopepro wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 23, 2023 1:08 pm

I mostly agree with others here... but say you're skiing dense trees and it's pretty steep and just going faster isn't really going to work out. I had some moments like that this weekend and yeah, it starts to get a little tough. It's going to start feeling like you need to backseat a little to keep the tips rising but now you're in that situation you describe where your skis aren't weighted equally and they start going different directions.

This might not be "best practice" but I find myself only being in full deep stance for a tiny bit of the time. Normally it's smooth transitions back and forth, but if i'm really needing to keep things under wraps in pow I spend much more time close to parallel--like I stall out in the middle of the transition between linked turns. I think the other thing in deep pow (especially when it's as heavy as it is on the coast) is that you really, really, really need to ride the boards, not steer them. You've got no chance of muscling your skis around when they're deep.

But really it's just more fun to find some more open space, or lower angle slopes, to just open it up and let the speed keep you on top.

What kind of skis are you on? If they are skinny and the trees are tight you may not be able to get up to the speed that you need to get the skis to turn before hitting a tree. I only ski steep trees when they have deep powder and with powder boards.


Sometime when skiing tight trees on steeper terrain I turn with almost all my weight on the lead ski. It feels kinda like going down stairs. The turn happens quick and then you step into the next one.

fisheater wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 23, 2023 9:28 am

I have found the deeper the snow, the straighter down the fall line I ski. Even alpine skiing in deep snow and steep terrain trying to turn too far across the fall line is not a good idea. As a matter of fact, stopping was something that took a few turns to accomplish.
I would just try making turns straighter down the fall line.

^^^ This.