Thirty feet in the air, I lean back into the cold metal chairlift and take a deep breath. Looking between my legs, I watch skiers fly down the mountain, and I pay attention to the rhythm of the turns, the quick pole plants and the tiny space between their long skis. Every once in a while, a skier with a very different technique will catch my eye. Deep knee bends define every turn, as if the skier is using scissors to carve the edges of a snow cone.
The ski boots are attached to the ski at the top of the boot, and the heel lifts up as the skier kneels into each turn. This technique is called Telemark skiing, and although it is still relatively unknown to many Alpine skiers, it has roots that go back to the birth of skiing as a sport.
Sondre Noreheim skied in his tiny hometown of Morgedal in the Telemark region of Norway for years, experimenting with ski equipment in the hilly terrain. In 1868, the 42-year old Noreheim won Norway’s first ski jump competition, wowing the crowd with ski turns the spectators and judges had never seen before. In this competition, he introduced what became known as the Telemark turn.
Like alpine turns, the focus of Telemark turns is on moving the skier’s weight from side to side, but the key to telemarking is balancing the weight on the front and back of the ski as well. Telemark turns begin with the skis in parallel position, but as the turn is initiated, the knee bends on the uphill ski and the back of skier’s boot comes off the ski. The boot of the downhill ski remains flat as the skier’s bent knee slides forward at least one boot length in front of the other ski. Tele skiers begin turns in a parallel stance with even weight on both skis, but the kneeling motion pushes that balance to nearly 80% of the skier’s weight on the downhill ski. With staggered, bent legs easing forward, it is skier’s choice on how deeply to bend the knees.
Expert telemarkers looks like they are doing gym squats down the mountain, effortlessly kneeling and moving their weight from leg to leg. The 1868 Norwegian competition marked a key moment in skiing history, helping to push skiing from a utilitarian method of travel toward its place as one of the most popular sports in the world.
A cultural shift toward enjoying time in nature that began in the 1960s inspired outdoor enthusiasts, and dedicated skiers began looking for ways to enjoy the freedom of exploring snowy backcountry woods. Cross country skiing became more popular, but the backcountry lured skiers who wanted to experience the untouched hills. Telemark historians credit groups of skiers living in Crested Butte, Colorado and the northern Green Mountains of Vermont with creating the revival of Telemark in the early 1970s.
Still, telemarking stayed a niche sport for many years, in part because of its appeal to skiers who preferred backcountry mountains to more public ski locations. It developed a reputation as a very challenging form of skiing and according to Telemark skiier Mitch Weber, “Alpine skiers and snowboarders weren't exposed much to the sport, and when they were it was usually negatively. If they saw them at all from the lifts, boarders and alpine skiers would usually see telemarkers struggling mightily on moderate terrain, hands waving around in the air, searching for balance.”
Telemark skiing struggled to find its place in the sport, and the challenges of early Telemark equipment kept it out of the mainstream of the growing popularity of alpine skiing. The early equipment couldn’t keep up with its passionate users. Standard Telemark boots were made of tall, stiff leather and did not wear well in the wet, snowy conditions, and Telemark skis were often too thin or too stiff. “Savvy tele skiers would shun skinny tele skis and seek out wider alpine skis with a reasonably soft flex, as this made it easier to pressure and bend the rear ski in the tele turn,” said Weber. “Unfortunately all too often these soft flexing skis would turn out to be lousy performers on anything but the softest snow.”
Then, in 1992, Black Diamond Equipment, a designer and manufacturer of mountaineering and backcountry skiing gear developed a line of plastic telemark boots in conjunction with Italian bootmaker SCARPA. Soon after, competitors including Garmont and Crispi entered the telemark equipment market. These companies have developed boots that can be customized and are geared toward the many varieties of telemark skier. There are now several choices of boots including standard backcountry telemark touring boots, all-mountain boots for the telemarker who hikes with climbing skins and values a lightweight boot, and freeride boots, which have the most performance enhancing stiffness and control.
Telemark and alpine skis have also advanced from the skinny, hard and inflexible skis used in the early days of the sport. The 1990s brought the innovation of the parabolic shape. Parabolic skis have become the standard in alpine skiing and are thinner in the center of the ski, which gives the skier more flexibility when turning. Telemark skis also adapted the parabolic shape and over time, telemark skiers have adapted traditionally alpine skis by adding a telemark-specific binding. Skis that perform best when telemarking vary with skill level, but generally are lighter, wider and more flexible than standard alpine skis.
While only connected to the toe of the boot, Telemark bindings must fulfill the skier’s need for control, maintain power to withstand high speeds, and be light enough to function in touring conditions. Original Nordic freeheel bindings were mounted with three pins to the toe of the leather boot, leaving the heel free. New styles of bindings have become more complex with the switch to plastic boots. Releasable bindings are important for tele skiers who risk backcountry avalanche conditions. Skis that come off in an avalanche give the skier a better chance for survival, but there is some controversy as to the safest and most reliable type of releasable binding.
Today’s three-pin boots utilize internal compression springs and steel rods to bind the boot, and Cable bindings anchor the toe of the boot to the ski and circle the heel with an adjustable metal cable that slips into a groove on the back of the boot. Complete Release Bindings, CRB, replace the metal cable with stiff brass connecting rods and an aluminum toe box. The newest advancement in tele bindings, New Telemark Norm, NTN, offer a step-in design similar to an alpine binding and a lever for free-pivot touring. However, the release function has not yet been certified by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization. Finally, passionate tele skiers have the sensitive equipment needed to master the rhythm and flow of the telemark turn, making it easier for the tele skier to make turns with a sharp carving motion that resembles the style of the traditional alpine skier.
World Cup teams across Europe continue to call for telemark skiing to become an Olympic event, but as of 2010 it was not on the short list for sports to be added for the 2014 Olympics. Telemark is considered a ski discipline by the International Ski Federation, which holds several global telemark competitions each year.
Telemarking has always had its passionate enthusiasts, but the popularity and awareness of the sport is finally tipping over into mainstream skiing culture. Google “telemark skiing” and find almost 300,000 hits, but the same search for “skiing” results in almost 30 million hits. For a sport that began at the same time as the more popular alpine skiing, there is still a long way to go to match its ski cousin in popularity. But one skier at a time, telemark’s footprint is growing larger.
Sources:
J.P. Scanlon
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