When to Drop a Knee

[FourthCoast]

Thanks for all the responses. I do not see much, if any, soft snow skiing in my future. I am OK with 'wanna-be telemark artist' status. I will have as much fun as I can on the groomers, hard pack and ice.

[bauerb]

I grew up nordic ski racing and olympic style ski jumping( I competed in combined). I started telemarking when I was about 13yo. I stopped alpine skiing about that same time. I was so used to not having my heal locked down, that telemarking was the obvious thing to do. I started skiing at ski resorts on my nordic racing equipment using tele technique. I quickly graduated to a pair of Asolo extremes with the cuff and padding hacked off some alpine boots to give the Asolo's extra height and support( I'm sure lots of people did this too). so basically its been 30 years since I have used alpine equipment. so unlike alpine skiers who have crossed over to to Tele and are therefore more comfortable with parallel turns, I am the opposite. I ski parallel when its flat or I am just traversing. I do this to save energy. but as soon as it gets steep, icy or there are bumps, I have one knee down. I started wearing knee pads early on because my stance on steps and bumps is super low. I have jumped off drops into couloirs at places like Blackcomb, and I cannot even begin to imagine how I would handle that doing parallel turns. to me, tele turns are my comfort zone, parallel is for relaxing

when I was younger and racing nordic, I never thought much about the energy needed for Tele. now I think about it alot. I train using a stair master, crouched down low on the foot pads...believe it or not, doing intervals crouched down on a stair climber is very much like doing quick tele turns. my style of skiing is alot of quick feet, quick jump turns, etc.

[Rodbelan]

... the act of dropping a knee creates a longer base between your two feet and will give you better control of fore-aft balance.

Of course, the whole point of telemark skiing isn't to have a technical advantage over alpine gear/technique. It's an aesthetic all its own. I'm sure you know that, otherwise you wouldn't be taking up the sport.

Fore-aft balance. Aesthetic.

Telemark equipment and the telemark turn allow for complete skiing: Near perfect continuity between flats, uphills and downhills.

Excellent answer LF...

[jyw5]

I went out and skiied this afternoon in warm temps. thin breakable crust (created by high winds from last night) with deep wet heavy snow underneath. The poles sink all the way in. My 62mm asnes would sink into it. To make matters worse other people's tracks would create this semi hard/soft crud that is unavoidable in certain spots... any advice on how to turn in this stuff on a moderate slope (equivalent to a blue square at a resort) ?
I have alfa leather nnn bc boots and asnes ft62 with 45mm x skins to provide some grip and slow things down.

Thanks

[Rodbelan]

Not much to do: call it a day off, drink some beer, next to a warm fire...

Or else, jump turn... You can't unweight effectively in crud; you need some air to turn. You also need to crunch the surface to ski effectively. «Pretend you are an ice breaker, not a speed boat» Dr Telemark. Hard stuff though.

[bgregoire]

JYW, yes and besides, turning in hard crust will rip those nice Alfa boots of yours apart in no time flat!

[jyw5]

thanks! glad to know that these conditions are tough...perhaps that explains the few people that were up there yesterday (with heavy AT setups and wide fat boards)... I may have fallen more times yesterday than I did all of last season.

[fisheater]

I does add credence to Lowangle Al’s go to kit of Vectors and T-4’s.

[FourthCoast]

Telemark equipment and the telemark turn allow for complete skiing: Near perfect continuity between flats, uphills and downhills.

All the responses have been awesome but this is the one that really spoke to me personally. Getting the tools and developing the technique to climb and descend with little or no gear changes is now my goal. I think the skis and bindings and boots I have now are good enough for this. I will be looking for short, or narrow, climbing skins. I hope this will allow me to start working on continuity between flats, uphills and downhills.

[lowangle al]

Telemark equipment and the telemark turn allow for complete skiing: Near perfect continuity between flats, uphills and downhills.

All the responses have been awesome but this is the one that really spoke to me personally. Getting the tools and developing the technique to climb and descend with little or no gear changes is now my goal. I think the skis and bindings and boots I have now are good enough for this. I will be looking for short, or narrow, climbing skins. I hope this will allow me to start working on continuity between flats, uphills and downhills.

I'm not so sure skins will get you the continuity you are looking for. I think the consensus is, that even with modern kicker skins you need to remove them for a satisfying downhill run. Someone with experience with them hopefully correct me if I'm wrong.