My favorite thing to do on a lift is watch good skiers rip up the mountain. Steeps, groomers, bumps, blues, there’s something about watching someone shred that pushes me to ski better and harder. In the past few years, it’s been mostly alpine skiers & snowboarders, but I’ve recently noticed a boom in the number of telemarkers on the mountain. I’ve always been really impressed by telemarkers – it just seems so hardcore. I recently decided that I wanted to be hardcore. Never being one to go lightly into something new, I bought boots, bindings and a pair of High Society 179 cm FreeRide skis and had them mounted.
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 1st 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 2nd 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 3rd 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 2nd 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 2nd 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.
SPORT OBERMEYER
