How did you start Telemark?

[royboy]

G’day,
I was skiing in Breckenridge when I saw this guy on some tele skis. I had always wanted to make my way to the back country, the explanation he gave me about tele skiing made pretty good sense to me. A couple weeks later I bought my first set of tele skis out of the back of somebody’s pick up (Atomic Beta Tele Mark 20), and I never looked back. In 2009 I had some knee surgery that put me out for a season (non-skiing related). The recovery was slow. I move around quite a bit, I’m in the Pacific Northwest now, and while I suck something awful at telemark I still love it, and love learning new things about it. I really enjoy meeting other free heelers and talking about their technique, craft and that kind of jibber-jabber. My sons are now getting into skiing, so my last couple of years have been on green and blue runs. It’s all good though, I’ll make it back out there in the next couple of years; and hopefully my sons will be with me!

[athabascae]

In the early 1990s, I was in school in Ontario and there was a small contingent of students from BC (the British Columbia kind) that I took short nordic backcountry ski tours with, and they introduced me to tele turns. I had no idea what it was they were doing, but I already had skinny metal edged BC (the backcountry kind) skis, and had grew up doing a little alpine skiing, so I gave it a go - often with a heavy backpack on - ouch. The learning curve was steep and painful.

Did I mention a couple of those telemarking girls from BC were real cute? It was all pretty exotic for a young working class guy from the sticks.

Tom

[zonca]

This looks like a good place to introduce myself.

I live in eastern ON near the village of Killaloe in the rolling Opeongo Mountains. When I landed here in the early 70s we all did plenty of cross-country skiing but really it was more like snowshoeing due to the huge snowpack. We used to say the skiing only got good when the fence posts were buried.

10 or 12 years later I was living and working in Toronto and my son dragged me out to try alpine and I got hooked. When I learned about backcountry pow skiing I knew I had to check it out and tele was the way to go. The first light AT Dynafit gear was just appearing and tele was dominant. Still a very intermediate skier I booked into a lodge in the Selkirk Mountains with an misfit crew of novices. I was on 2/3 metal edge Karhu Kodiak Edges, Voile binders and those whacky Asolo boots with the hinge. I fell every turn for a week but never stopped laughing. Life was changed forever. I went back there for the next 7 years and had a lot of other great adventures in the big mountains. Slowly, slowly I was getting the act together taking lots of tele lessons and skiing every chance in the east. I guess I skied fixed heel for 3 seasons, spent 1 switching then went free, never looking back to see where my heel binding went.

Now being old and weak I hang out at Lake Louise for about a month each year to play around the sidecountry of the resort and do the occasional day tour up the Bow valley. I don't cross-country ski much anymore even though we now have Opeongo Hills Nordic just up the road. I'd rather put on my backcountry gear and skin around the bush.

[Johnny]

Hey Welcome to TT Zonca!

That was fun skiing with you last week...!

Please share your woodies AND your tech stuff...!