A few of my friends that tele, were excited to give me advice before I started.  “Buy kneepads”, “Watch a lot of videos”, “Do about 500 lunges to get in shape” & “Don’t do it”, were just a few of their helpful hints. 

Once out on the mountain, I learned a few things that any first-time tele-skiier should be made aware of.

-On my 1^st turn, I found that it’s easier to make alpine turns on tele equipment than I had guessed.  Surprisingly, you can almost ski them like normal skis.

-On my 2^nd turn, I learned that Black Diamond doesn’t sell you the retention leashes with the bindings.  My first crash sent my ski rocketing downhill about 50 yards until it hit a tree and stopped in a powder stash.  I thought something had looked funny about my initial setup.

-On my 3^rd turn, I discovered that as your heel isn’t attached, there’s nothing keeping you from going over the tips of your skiis.  NOTHING!

-On my 2^nd run (after running to the local tele shop and buying the retention leashes), I realized that in telemarking, there is in fact a left & right ski.  Who knew?  I blame my dismal first run performance on not knowing this and once I made the change it seemed a lot easier.

I have now completed my 2^nd weekend as a telemarker and I like it more and more each day.  A few more weekends of practice & hopefully I’ll be taking them out backcountry, where they were meant to be used.

http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/warrens_world_zermatt_random/16220/