New to Telemark, advice on skis please!

[TelePort]

Greetings!

I have telemarked once in my life like 9 years ago and I loved it. It was out west on a mountain in Oregon but I don’t recall which one. A friend took me and loaned me some gear. I live in the Midwest and I alpine skied all through my youth but for some reason dropped it as an adult for many years, until last year when my wife and daughter started getting into it as relative beginners and I decided to go with them and try it and wow was it fun! It was hard to believe I stayed away that long. We bought decent gear for everybody and I had a ball but I really had this yearning to get into telemark. At the local ski swap last year I picked up some amazing year at unbelievable prices: a pair of like new Garmont Prophet boots, NTN Freeride bindings with what model ski I can’t remember, because the skis ended up having small bindings on them and the boots I got that fit me needed large bindings and I didn’t realize there was a difference at the time. The next day at the swap someone else happily bought the skis from me for what I paid for them, which was like 100 bucks and in retrospect I should’ve pulled the bindings off and sold them to fund a set of larges but I didn’t know any better. Fast forward to now I have a set of large freerides showing up in the mail any day, I still have my boots, and now I need to decide what skis to use out of the three pairs that I have, which all have alpine bindings on them and I’m not sure if I will continue to Alpine ski or not once I start telemarking.

The skis I have are:

Dynastar Course Pro 177
Volkl Supersport S5 168
4Frnt CJS Signature 180

I’m guessing the 4Frnt skis would not be a good choice as they are really designed for powder and are a relatively straight wide ski and we don’t see a whole lot of powder in Wisconsin! So I guess it’s between the Dynastars or the Volkls unless I God forbid find a fourth pair of skis to use and decide to leave these three as they are. Opinions? Advice?

Thanks,

Peter.

[TelePort]

Wow. I am basically new to this forum, and this is my first post in a very long time and my first time actually getting started doing Tele and I know very little and I really need some help please if anyone can take the time. Thanks!

[willco99]

Hey Teleport,

Welcome. Don't get too bent....at least for me it's a working day and I can sometimes check in but can't respond till later....life responsibilities you know. Might be the same for others.

Been skiing tele for 20 years-ish. Started the same as you....kiddo came along and I made the switch after growing up an alpine racer and doing that fo rmany years. Settled in after a few years and now it's the only way I will ever slide downhill.

FWIW, I've tried lots of skis and binding combos and am currrenty on a Volkl Kendo as an every-day east coast ski with a 22D OutlawX binding and absolutely love the set up. I am an agressive skier and like that the ski is a bit on the burlier side for frontside ice days but it can still power through some deep stuff and chowder the day after. Good in the sidecountry, trees and not even bad in the bumps.

I also have a pair of Mantras for deeper/mankier days and monted a Stockli Laser AX last season for pure carving days and, man, what and unexpected blast of a ski! I was skeptical of it as a tele ski but I was happily surprised at how fun it was at Stowe on a firm, sunny day!

I've skied a lot of the older K2 backside skis, a few Dynastars and some others. I still use my K2 Sideshow and Backups with Axls as my backcounry skis...much loghter and forgiving in eastern trees and narrow CCC trails.

I would look at something 84mm to 90mm underfoot if you're looking for a one-ski quiver in the mid-west. I lived in Madison WI for a bit and you're sure to ski a lot of firm groomers an chop off-piste.

Good luck with it....you won't regret making the switch permanently, I can promise you that.

Cheers,
WC

[Woodserson]

I guess it depends on what you're looking to do here...

The Volkl and Dynsastar are both stiff hardpack oriented skis that are going to rip the Wisconsin hardpack, so that's good. They are also going to be a bear to really load up on the back/rear ski. That being said you have a pretty powerful setup there in terms of boots and bindings so that will help you, as long as you understand how to weight the back ski and get it to power up.

I would err to the softer ski, which could be the Volkl? But it's also very short, so keep in mind that until you get good control of the back ski the tip may wander easier into your other binding/boot and you could get caught up.

There is always room for another ski, always. I like what wilco99 said, a good all-mountain ski in the 80's range would be really nice to learn on if it had a rounder flex. This might be nice for the wife and kiddos as you could shmear around at their speed and not go mach-looney down the mountain trying to get your Dynastar Course Pro's to bend.

Also, this isn't the busiest forum in the world, (there are all of 23 telemark skiers left in North America) and sometimes it takes a couple of days but you'll almost always get solid advice here and there's pages and pages of info already posted. So welcome! It's great to have you, but please don't take a delay in response personally.

[TomH]

Take a look at Binding Freedom inserts. In your position with multiple skis, you may find you want to share the binding over several/all of the skis at some point. I'd start by mounting up the Volkl's knowing that you may outgrow them (depending on your size). It's likely that you can do inserts for the current alpine pattern as well as the Rotte Freeride pattern if you have the interest in possibly running alpine bindings for any reason along the way (all my skis are currently set-up this way (even though I tele ~95% of the time).

Once you get proficient, then I would bump up to the Dynastar as the daily driver for Wisconsin, but I think it may otherwise punish you initially. One thing of note on the Course Pro, will be that it probably has a binding plate which you may or may not be able to drill for the tele bindings. You'll have to inspect it to figure out if it'll take a tele mount, if you can remove it and mount the bindings flat on the deck, or if you need to make some custom risers that use the existing holes (cutting board material can work well for this). Generally speaking, the Freerides have enough height that you can probably run them flat without worrying about booting out an a hard carve, but you'll probably drag the brakes, as they don't pull in like an alpine binding does.

[TelePort]

Thank you all for the great advice. I also found a lively telemark facebook group you all likely know about, The Telemark Skiing Forum with the banner "Pinheads from Hell" at the top. Between the two I have more than enough to chew on and get me going. Here's to snow!!!

[fisheater]

What’s FaceBook ????