Why do people Telemark?

dont think i ever answered the question. i was in the high peaks alot found that skiin opened up more possibilities .started lift services became a gravity slave.also many teler`s dont know big toe little toe ,how much to weight the back foot .those that started on leather had to learn technique.

Seen last weekend at Belleayre:

^^^^ Good for Belleayre for doing that but they sure could have found some better pictures. The technique of the guy in the top photo is all mixed up and the people in the bottom photo are just shuffling around. Not much stoke there. Oh well, they are trying.

It actually hurts for me to look at that guy in the top photo.  He's got exactly the wrong hand forward.  

CONTENTS DELETED

who knew Hemingway was a tele skier?

Hemingway wrote very eloquently about skiing on several occasions. If you want a good place to start, go the the library and find find a copy of "The Nick Adams Stories." It should be required reading for all outdoorsy guys.

I would like to think that Ernest H had a dog-eared copy of "Ski-ing from A-Z," a phenomenal book by Dr. Walter Amstutz, published in 1939 by the Oxford University Press. In it, Amstutz describes, with beautiful photographs and terse text, a wide range of ski-ing techniques, beginning with basic fundamentals still needed today, and including such esoteric and sadly out-dated skills as the Jerked Christiania, the Scissors Christiania and of course, The Telemark. He wrote: "The Telemark may be started from the sliding walk, the single stem, or the the lunging position. It should only be used in soft snow." Amstutz was a ski nerd off the scale, and is even referenced in the Canadian Ski Museum Collections (here is one of many: see here, scroll down to pg. 40). But I digress.

Jump (or lunge) forward to 1972 and the the classic but now sadly out-dated Sierra Club book, "Wilderness Skiing" by Lito Tejada-Flores and Allen Steck. They describe The Telemark as "an advanced turn which is purely Nordic" and a technique "which carries us further into the past... and it's a matter of open debate among Nordic specialists whether or not it's really useful for anything... This one sounds simpler than it really is."

Hmmm. Hard to believe that a few years later, in 1978, Steve Barnett turned the nordic world on its ear with "Cross Country Downhill & Other Nordic Mountain Skiing Techniques." Here is Barnett's description: "The most exhilarating of Nordic turns, and also the most distinctively Nordic, is the Telemark turn. It is so elegant and graceful that onlookers often say it looks like a waltz. It is also powerful - the telemark can be used successfully in any snow condition, even the most abysmal concoction of crust layers and molasseslike snow."

End of nerd-out.

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Hemingway wrote very eloquently about skiing on several occasions. If you want a good place to start, go the the library and find find a copy of "The Nick Adams Stories." It should be required reading for all outdoorsy guys.

  "Where are we going, Dad?" Nick asked.

   "Over to the Indian camp. There is an Indian lady very sick."

   "Oh," said Nick.

- Indian Camp, Ernest Hemingway.

Great literature.

Ernie was also quite the drinker and tough guy. When he was lived Key West, he would frequently challenge the locals to a boxing matchs saying he could whoop any challengers, which I believe he did.....Boom Boom Pow.

Snowballs wrote

Ernie was also quite the drinker and tough guy.

Even though I (obviously) think his writing is overrated it is sad to consider his demise:  depression, meds, shock treatment and suicide with a shotgun in his mouth.

Michaeltokyo wrote

- Indian Camp, Ernest Hemingway.

Great literature.

Sometimes context is critical. I was just referring to skiing.

What MT quoted: maybe not Ernest's best work. What Burgermeister quoted: pure, brilliant poetry.

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Sometimes context is critical.

No argument from here.  I just always loved that line: "'Oh', said Nick."  I have enjoyed some of H's work, but not all, certainly.  I once met Carlos Baker, his official biographer, at Princeton and had a nice conversation with him about Hemingway.

This is a classic and I thought it should be in this thread. The latest from LingerLonger Productions:



Just kiddin LL.

Thanks for putting this up Harv. It's a classic.

"I even bought a caribiner"

Watched the video at lunch and just about snorted my soup through nose. That was fantastic.

Love the hippy music.

I started to tele after 40+ years on alpines racing, freestyle competitions (moguls, jumps) and just rip pin' around the mountain.  Tele helps sharpen up your balance, is more active than alpine and if done right, can be done as fast or faster than the fastest alpine skiers on the mountain.  I can keep up to just about anyone one alpines and can bring a patient down the hill on a toboggan if need be while on teles.  Telemarking is a great way to engage your mind actively on technique with every turn-it's a cool feeling.

HA!  Great video

I started last season and am the level where i feel comfortable on the facelift at WF but not above that.  I would do it more but my boots are not that comfortable compared to my alpine boots.  I have very flat feet and use custom orthonics in my alpine boots but those don't flex right to use in tele boots.  I think the tele boots i got are just not big enough for my wide feet.  I had been back to High Peaks 3 times and still they are not right

ausable skier wrote

 I would do it more but my boots are not that comfortable compared to my alpine boots.  I have very flat feet and use custom orthonics in my alpine boots but those don't flex right to use in tele boots.  I think the tele boots i got are just not big enough for my wide feet.  I had been back to High Peaks 3 times and still they are not right

Sounds like you bought a Scarpa Boot with a Garmont foot . . . I have really flat feet too, and my tele boots feel a million times more comfortable than my alpine boots . . .  That's one of the advantages.

no i bought Garmont synerg-x boots.  the bellow pushes down on my instep and it crushes my flat arch which i can't properly support without custom footbeds

anyone have any suggestions - i put the boots on the other day and they hurt so much that i'm considering selling the whole set up which only has maybe 12 hours ski time total