How did you start Telemark?

[MikeK]

Even though I don't and probably never will identify myself as a 'telemark skier', getting more involved in this aspect of skiing has changed my perspectives radically. If you want to put labels on stuff - I'll always go for 'backcountry nordic' as mine. But just skier suffices.

Soooo... what flipped the switch for you?

I remember seeing tele skiers once in a great while at ski resorts when I was a kid. The ones I recall were on really long skis and making giant, graceful arcs down the hill. I didn't think it stupid or gay but I didn't really get it - it looked kind of difficult too.

I recall about 10 years ago trying to make a tele turn on my traditional wax touring xc skis. I was at Mendon Ponds park skiing the groomed trails and for whatever reason I had the idea in my head that all I needed to do was put myself in that telemark stance and the skis would turn. They didn't. Not even close. I maybe tried a couple times and decided it was stupid and impossible and forgot about it for a few years.

I'm not sure what got me turned on exactly, but I remember hearing about metal edge xc skis about 5 years ago. I inquired on the internet and was turned on to Dave Mann's page:

https://home.comcast.net/~pinnah/Dirtba ... rtbag.html

That was the real switch, right there. Everything I read on that site was what I wanted to do. I immediately started to rent skis and try them out. I was hooked, no turning back.

Dave - if you are out there, that site was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was turned around by Dave's work. Some may say Dave's ideas are old and outdated... sure, a little - but the basic premise is the same. It's still the same goofy skiing that everyone loves to hate - it's not exciting enough to make magazine covers. It doesn't have an Olympic representation. It's not fast or flashy. It doesn't push the limits of anything. The technology is old. The techniques are old. It's just plain old skiing... the way people used to do it before there were lifts and helicopters.

My only regret: I wish I would have known sooner.

[Dirtbag]

I grew up sking at Whitewater and occationaly would see this dirty old hippy dude just ripping it under the lift. I was 15 at the time and thought "damn that's real sking right there". So I caught him in the lift line and asked him how to get started. He asked me how big my feet were and as luck had it we both wore 10s and he had a whole setup for sale for $200! I spent all my snow shoveling money got the gear and the guy spent a couple hours to get me started the next Saturday. I have never locked a heel since. Now I'm the dirty old Tele guy.

[lowangle al]

I took a road trip out west in '84' and stopped in a bar in Trout Lake, Wa. I met a guy who said he was going skiing the next day and that he had some xtra gear and if it fit I could go along. He hooked me up with a light xc set up. This was late May so started walking up the trail until we got to the snow. I put my skis on but he oddly kept carrying his. Eventually we got to an open meadow where he showed me what it was all about. I think I had heard about tele before but never really gave it much thought. Anyway I made it my goal to learn how. Also on the same trip, I think in Yellowstone, I saw the track where someone had herringboned up a hill with a nice s turn going down next to it. That is really what got the wheels spinning I wanted to be able to duplicate it.

The next winter I had a pair of xcd-gts, 3-pins and leather boots and it only took 15 years to figure it out. Now I have the skills and skis to ski almost anywhere but I don't have the ambition to ski the same lines that I floundered on 25 years ago.

[Nick D]

1979 on Mount Seymour north of Vancouver, three years after I had learned to alpine ski I saw this older European guy on Fischer track skis telemarking down one of the bunny slopes. I thought hmmm that looks interesting. Then up at Whistler I saw a few folks telemarking. So in 1980 I bought a pair of Schwendener skis with aluminum edges, if you can believe. They were skinny, pronounced double camber and were a bitch to turn. In 1981 I went on a ski week in the Purcells in one of the early BC huts with these skis and flailed. The guides had cable bindings and knew how to tele so I thought I have to upgrade to Chouinard Cable Bindings and ditch the 3 pins. Fortunately, the skis delaminated so I took them back to Coast Mountain Sports and replaced them with a pair of Kazama Mountain Highs. To be continued.......

[MikeK]

Cool stories guys - keep them coming!

[Johnny]

For me I was just sick of riding a chairlift for 8 minutes and going down 30 seconds. I remember watching guys doing the tele thing in the early 80's with their XC skis down black diamond trails... I thought it was so lame and ridiculous. Why would anyone do that when you can ride at 60mph on real skis?

Eventually, I got bored with alpine, there was no more challenge. And I could not afford alpine gear and season passes anymore. So I decided I would just hike the backside starting from my backyard and that would be fun. I thought about going the AT way, but while it would fix the lift ticket issue, it would still be just as fast and boring as alpine skiing. So I made the switch, I threw away my alpine setup (Brown Olin Mark IV and rear-entry boots, which was super rad and cool to ski with in 2005...!) and got my hands on a pair of leathers and Carbon Surfs... A very bad combination to start with...

I moved to plastics and racing skis two years after... The main problem was back, it was now just as fast as alpine... And so I fell in love with XCD... Slow, cool, chill, smooth... But just as exciting as carving or ripping moguls...

[teledance]

Was 1991 and I was given some Asolo snowpines and 215 Tua Telemark skis and ISU had a 1 credit Telemark class. Easy A and the next season I scored some some skins for 60% off and suddenly hiking was easy compared to the bootpacking I had been doing with the Alpine gear. Many seasons later still Tele skiing and hiking.

[connyro]

One time at Mont Sutton in the mid-80s, I was getting my ass handed to me on spring snow while trying to charge the bumps/steeps. Some stinky hippie on XC skis FLIES by me, making me feel even less all-star. I had grown up alpine and XC skiing/racing, but somehow had never heard of/seen anyone tele. A few years later, I was at Porcupine Mountain riding a lift while, unbeknownst to me, the very first Porkies Telefest was going on, and I saw some guy dressed in a full gorilla suit teleing very aggressively and smoothly. The light bulb went off in my head at that moment: tele was the ski technique I needed to learn if I wanted to combine XC, alpine, snowshoe, MTB. Up here, there's not a ton of vertical and it seemed like overkill to use full on alpine setups for sitting on the lift for 10 minutes for a 50 second run (I hear ya LJ). I started with the some old sliding snowshoe type skis and quickly moved on to a pair of 10th MTNs. Tele makes sense up here for touring for turns, skiing MTB trails, trail-breaking, adventure skiing, and even skiing the groomers.

[lilcliffy]

Until the mid-90s- Nordic (i.e. "xcountry") skiing and "downhill" (i.e. Alpine) skiing were completely separate in my mind (yes- that is how little I really knew about skiing).

Until the mid-90s, I xcountry-backcountry toured on backcountry-xcountry gear; and I "downhill" skied on all-mountain Alpine gear- at groomed resorts. Although I saw the occasional telemarker at resorts- and thought it looked cool- I never frequented Alpine ski hills enough to get to know anyone that telemarked. So- I never thought about it much. In fact- at that point in my life, I thought that "downhill" skiing was a resort-based sport for the rich- and figured that my "downhill" skiing days were numbered- now that my parents were no longer buying lift tickets! At heart I was a xcountry tourer- I had no idea that the telemark could open up another universe of backcountry touring.

Then, I ended up working as a professional logger in British Columbia, and got the chance to do some big-mountain backcountry touring- where I got my first exposure to both AT equipment and big-mountain telemark equipment. Although I loved the downhill performance of AT (and despite world-class telemarkers that can do it- there are many hills out there that I would only ski with Alpine equipment- especially at this point in my life); I HATED the touring performance of AT compared to Nordic/telemark equipment. Thus began my exploration of mountain Nordic skiing (i.e. "telemark").

I expect I will be working on my telemark skills- on traditional, light backcountry Nordic gear- for the rest of my life.

[MikeK]

I expect I will be working on my telemark skills- on traditional, light backcountry Nordic gear- for the rest of my life.

I was just talking to a friend of mine about this... if it gets too easy and you stop learning, you will be bored and move on to something else.

OTOH if it gets frustrating, you may do the same thing...

Trick is to find that balance of keeping what interests you and what doesn't exceed the limits of your talent. I think everyone can ski this way with some work, it may not be magazine quality skiing, but it can be done.