How to get started?

[Peschamel]

Hello there Telemark-Enthusiasts,

My name is Peter and I am new to the forum but already took a deep dive in all the interesting discussions about technique and gear. Telemarkways I am an absolute beginner. I did some cross country skiing the last years and as a Swiss, I learned to Ski (Alpine Style) when I was 3 years old.

When I am not skiing the groomed tracks, I use my Madshus BC 55 waxless skis with a BC Magnum and Alfa Skarvet Advance boots. With this setup I will try to cross the Norwegian Hardangervidda (hut to hut) this year.

Now: I am keen to learn the Telemark-Technique and just had a 2 hours lesson in a ski ressort with NTN binding and Scott Voodoo Boots. It was a lot of fun and I still feel my upper thighs . Well let's say there is a long way to go!

I am bit unsure now how to proceed. Snow conditions around the place where I live (the middle mountainrange called Jura in the northern part of Switzerland) are hardly soft and plushy. Most of the time there is a hard ice crust and not too much of snow either. There are small, not too steep mountains. I would say a NTN system with hard boots is overkill. On the other hands I don't know if it's really suitable to learn the technique with the BC55/Alfa setup.

So what would be the best way to proceed from here? Get an NTN / hard boot setup and then hit the ski-resorts with it? Or take my BC55 to the skiresorts? Or fight my way through local snow with the BC55? Do I need new gear?

First of all I would say, I should just go for it and ski as much that I can an try to improve my slalom. But maybe you have some advice on top of that since there is so much different gear and style and conditions out there to Telemark. See pictures for local snow and terrain conditions.

Have a nice day and a lot of fresh snow,

Peter

[havuja]

Hello Peter!

I have been to Jura only in summertime. It is beautiful and I bet you can have lots of good skiing there.

My backround in learning Nordic telemark -inspired DH skiing was mostly with skis similar to your BC55's. It was a long road, but as years (and decades) went by I noticed that I could actually enjoy DH skiing, perhaps with technique somewhat resembling telemark turns, at least in good conditions. Those good conditions were spring corn (when the surface of frozen hard snow melts during a warm day, if I've gotten the term right), or a bit of powder snow on top of firm snow. What blew my mind were Åsnes Kongsvold skis in a bit deeper perfect powder - suddenly I felt I could do almost anything, with all the feeling of light, soft XC gear. Those perfect conditions are rare, and finally this winter I decided to try plastic boots (Scarpa T4 & T2) with Altai Kom skis to handle more difficult conditions - this far it seems that they do that well. For deepest powder I will want bigger skis, and for firmer and especially icy snow a narrower ski would be better.

For long I struggled to learn skiing DH with XC skis, without really practicing, or at least without any guidance. Lately that I have started to actually practice, learning for example from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJ0Z8GOGnS0, and telehiro's Youtube clips. I would say that those are really good especially for learning with skinny XC -skis, very different styles which is good - I think that ultimately we all need to develop our own anyways. Practice seems to help (what a suprise! I thought it was only for those without talent!), I already feel more confident with skinny skis in other than perfect conditions too. So, that is exactly what you could also try with your existing equipment. Or, in addition to that, you could invest in more sturdy gear, something you could perhaps learn with in resort alongside with BC use - softish plastic boots (or stiff leathers if mainly BC) and skis like Sbound 98, or alpine touring skis well below 90mm waist might work well - others will be able to help you out with those, I have just began my search for a more DH oriented ski for firm snow conditions. Sbound 98 looks like a good option if planning to do some distance too, but personally I am not sure if I would like their aggressive scales.

[stilltryin]

There is something to be said for the number of turns (amount of practice) you can get lift-served. If you are primarily at a resort to practice for xcD tele, it's probably not worth it or necessarily a good idea to go with big resort gear. On the other hand, your light, skinny gear will make it more difficult to learn. Gear that could work in both situations might be best -- just for example: a light plastic (or burly leather) boot on a 70-80 underfoot ski. In-person lessons are a good way to go. I expect you will hear other options from others here. Good luck an have fun!

[CwmRaider]

Hello there Telemark-Enthusiasts,


When I am not skiing the groomed tracks, I use my Madshus BC 55 waxless skis with a BC Magnum and Alfa Skarvet Advance boots. With this setup I will try to cross the Norwegian Hardangervidda (hut to hut) this year.

Either you do it, or you don't. There is no try.
-Master Yoda

I think those skis are fine for that, and I hope you have a great time.

As @stilltryin suggests you can do a lot of vertical m of descent when going to a ski resort. My thoughts are that the BC55 will be more difficult to telemark with than most other skis. Perhaps a Madshus Eon 62 or Epoch 68 would be quite affordable options with NNN-BC bindings, and the boots you already have, start on the blue slopes. Plus they would be nice on some tours when there is more snow than the M55 can handle.

On Nansen with NNN-BC I was able to keep up with not so great skiers using alpine gear, on blue and red slopes here in Norway, and I found even the easiest slopes to be fun enough! It is worth considering that there is no safety release if you fall, so keeping the speed down is also good for your health.

Of course if you really want to keep up with fast friends on alpine skis, then "proper" tele gear with plastic boots is the only real option. Arguably though, you have to focus more on technique and finesse with NNN-BC and leather boots, so you may learn quite a bit faster the hard way.

I mention Madshus above, they are good skis and affordable. I do like waxless skis myself but have grown more accustomed to waxable + short skins in recent years. Madshus went the latter option for a while but seem to be back on to waxless bases now, perhaps the skin system had some teething issues...
Sbound 98 or Åsnes are also good options maybe more expensive

[Peschamel]

@stilltryin and @havuja - thank you so much for your excellent widsom! I understand and it makes perfect sense to me.

@Roelant: Saying thank you I must - crossing Hardangervidda I will. Sense the wisdom it makes.

When it comes to the Skis you mentioned,that would include the following models:

Fischer S-Bound 98 (or 112?)
Åsnes Rabb 68 (or Falketind Eplore? Too narrow?)
Madshus Panorama M68

Would you go rather 70 cm under the foot or 80 cm under the foot? It depends, right?! On what?

Are those good choices? Any other models to consider?

Tusen takk og ha det bra!

Peter

PS: One picture from yesterday evening. Terrible refrozen snow conditions. I could not remotely turn telemark style at all. I was just glad I got back from the descent in one piece somehow (skis were Madshus BC55).

[Mattafix]

Peter,
you mentioned your alpine skiing experience. For me, the answer to „how to proceed“ is absolutely clear. Go and get resort equipment. There is so much used gear out there - which one is almost irrelevant, 75mm NN, NTN or TTN.
First, I tried to learn Telemark turns on my own. I have been alpine skiing for over 30 years until I decided to learn skiing with free heels. But - as soon as I took lessons I realized, there was no way to dive into the secrets of telemark turning on my own.
Since you are a very experienced alpine skier, you will get used to skiing downhill very, very quickly when you find someone who can teach you relevant things. Afterwards you can get used to telemark turning every slope, mountain, couloir,....
Without that knowledge, telemark skiing is really, really hard to learn and as a result you might struggle and fight your way through that jungle.
This is what I experienced by myself and witnessed looking at other people trying to learn.
Have fun!
Matt

[Peschamel]

Thank you Matt for your suggestion - I absolutely see your point.

There is one problem for me: I have low volume duckfeet with narrow heels and I always struggle to find boots that have a wide toebox but are small enough that I can fix my heel properly. So I would need exactly the right and custom fitted boot, otherwise I either destroy my toes or do not have enough foothold. In reality that means that I would have to buy a new plastic boot with fitting which is easely 500 Euro. I can get S-Bound 98 for around 350 Euro and could use my Alfa Skarvet Boots.

But if I should stumble on something that fits, I would get it as a resort xcD training gear.

Cheers,

Peter

[tkarhu]

I learned telemark turns on my own, when I followed this online book advice (link below). Yet my background is quite opposite form yours. I ski mainly XC, and did downhill a few seasons 30 years ago. My skis are similar to yours (Åsnes Gamme 200 cm), boots one step stiffer from Skarvet (Alfa Guard Advance). I get down 10-15' degree off piste slopes in slow, soft snow.
https://books.google.fi/books?id=p8YUCg ... tput=embed

I have practiced both telemark from wedge and telemark from striding. Also the even more basic exercises and instructions have been useful.

The book is linked and discussed in following, great topic.
https://telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php? ... ean#p15622

[tkarhu]

Here are a few photos from yesterday's practice. We had 35 cm powder snow, which is rare around here. Normally we have a thin layer of refrozen snow. Now its plus degrees and slush, so maybe we have that again, soon.

The almost 15' slope (in photos) was doable for a beginner yesterday, when snow slowed down. Gamme soft tips might have helped there. I had a look at the BC55's in a shop, and they seemed like nice skis, too. Same kind of camber as Gammes have. @Peschamel out of curiosity, do the BC55's have nordic rocker? I mean when you press the skis together at center of ski, do ski tips go farther away from each other? This just out of curiosity / "for science".

[Stephen]

Hello @Peschamel, enjoy your writing and question.

I am a little similar in some ways.
My foot is hard to fit and the ALFA boots seem to work best. Enough toe room and I can make the heel work. Low volume foot, wide toes. I have three layers of insole inside the boots: a layer of cardboard, the original ALFA insole, and a fairly thick wool insole. This seems to work well to fill the space my low-volume foot does not fill.

I aspire to graceful telemark and in good snow do pretty well. In difficult snow, not so well.
Mostly, I have skied the Asnes Ingstad and the Voile Ovjective BC (traction pattern), as well as the Asnes Gamme, and some others.

I wanted to ski more difficult terrain with more control, so this year bought NTN: Voile V6, Scarpa TX Pro, and Meidjo 3.0.
I have not had much chance to ski this setup yet, but expect it will give me much more control and open up more skiing options.

The TX Pro fit ok. Not like fantastic, and I still need to do more work on the toes (custom fit), but I think they will work well. There is SO much difference between a leather and a plastic boot. There is just no way around this.
Some people are really happy with the Scarpa T4 plastic boot. Less restrictive than the TX Pro, and more support than a leather boot.

It does take some research to wrap your head around what equipment is going to match your goals, and you may not get it right on the first try.
You have many years to work your way into it, so don’t be in too much of a hurry.

You may learn faster on NTN skiing the resorts.
If you come from a different direction, and learn on leathers and skinnier skis, it will be a more difficult, slower process, and in the end, you will be able to ski more varied snow and have a broader skill-set.
No right or wrong, either way.