Update from the XCD Knights

[Lhartley]

OK read the first couple pages

"XCD = XC gear: Leather shoes, no buckles, no cables, no plastic. Just fun.
Telemark = Everything else. Just as fun too."

Interesting. Sub domains are defines I guess? Now I know

[Manney]

Contemplating the words of the knights, my mind settles on the following…

You can execute telemark turns on cross country or alpine touring skis. The first requires great skill but at least the distance touring is relatively fast and easy. The second requires a modicum of skill but distance touring is slower and relatively hard.

Touring skis and XCD skis fall between XC and alpine skis.

Terrain defines what type of skiing ppl do as much as equipment. Ppl who avoid hills are cross country skiers. Ppl who seek groomed hills are downhill skiers. Ppl who seek natural conditions are backcountry skiers.

The knights might recognize a three way nexus between skill, equipment, and terrain. That nexus is where telemark skiing lives. A reasonable** descriptor might also be “glade skiing utilizing the telemark turn”. The most appropriate equipment for this task is XCD or touring skis.

Lifts and tracks turn things back into XC or downhill skiing, regardless of skill, equipment, or terrain. They might be places to practice certain things but the knights may acknowledge that spending time in the master’s wheel or a castle courtyard is not the same as going on a campaign or crusade.

**”Reasonable” being defined as something based on reasoning.

[greatgt]

^^^^^^^^ Good! TM

[Stephen]

"Miss the forest for the trees."

All the daily posts are the tree.
Telemark Talk is the forest.

After reading through 17 pages of this thread, maybe (and I stress the word maybe) I understand what some of the recent drama has been about.
This forum is pretty inclusive, but the name suggests the target content.
Not skate skiing, not classic track skiing, not Alpine Touring, not Alpine resort skiing, ...
I bet all of those have come up here in the past, but they're not Telemark skiing.
What's left is still pretty broad, but not all of it is Telemark.
Is shuffling around in the backcountry, with no actual Telemark stance and turns, Telemark?
Some people do that and show up here because this forum is probably the closest they can get to what they do.
Some people do strictly resort skiing on Telemark gear.
That's Telemark, but I would guess not the intended focus of this forum, as created and administered by the man behind the curtain.
They show up here because the forum has the word Telemark in it and there is some overlap.

My sense is that this forum was created to foster and protect the domain of people who like to ski light touring gear with a free heel. And everything else is sort of tolerated, to a degree.

Everyone has his/her own preference for terrain, equipment, and style.
It's been said many time: no value judgement, no right or wrong.
Maybe some of the friction arises when personal preference is translated into advise for others?
Hard to get away from that, really hard.
Without having professional or broad-based experience to draw on, and even then, there can be disagreement -- using the same data points, people can come to different conclusions.

What' my point? I don't know.
I just got curious about the dynamics that have been playing out and this is where it lead me.

If nothing else, come full circle and try to see the forest.
What is this forum?
What are we doing here?
What do we want?

I showed up here three years ago thinking I was going to buy a set of 220 woodies, and some leather shoes, to replace my 50 year old stuff I gave away 15 years ago, when I thought I wouldn't be going back to skiing.
(I was going to sail around the world, but that's a whole other story!)
I had NO idea on what the current equipment was.
Soon, my compulsive nature realized there was a whole new world I could dive into.
For over a year, I swore NNN BC, leather and traditional touring skis was my limit.
But, I had ancient history with Alpine, and knew what that felt like -- power is a temptation (again, no right or wrong -- am I having fun, or not).
So, I started dipping my toe in that domain: Plastic tele boot, NTN bindings, Alpine skis.
And, I'm still here (and there).
Is that type of skiing completely within the domain of this forum?
I would say not. But where else would I go? BCT is basically earn your turns AT.
That forum is also pretty inclusive (as many here have recently found out).

In light of all this, I think I better understand some of the Admin's recent behavior.
Maybe once the summer doldrums have passed, we can get back to the forest of Telemark.

[Manney]

In time, we will divulge more information, but these things go slowly…

Indeed. Three posts in seven years… and some are still having a hard time keeping up (or staying OT). LOL

[JB TELE]

Johnny you must ski on ice coast hardpack.
Skis wider than 109mm at the tip handle fine with stiff leathers in nipple deep (bring your snorkle for the tele turns) Colorado powder.

[greatgt]

JB the thing about ice coast is an illusion. We get that but mostly when the winds are blowing, and snow is dropping horizontally we have dynomite skiing and cruising. Generally, around here we get about 6 weeks of powder with an intrusion here and there of something else but that is quickly topped. The rest of the year....for us late October to June on closed lifts has everything. Unless it's glazed ice it's pretty decent. During late December to early April skiing in the gonz is inspiring. TM

[mca80]

"XCD simply means going downhill with cross-country ski equipement. The actual location where you ski is not taken into consideration. You can do backcountry XCD just as you can also do on-piste XCD."

Manney, this contradicts your statement re crusades. Also, connyro's response was never addressed, that if someone does xc skiing and encounters a hill, is it xcd? Lastly, the emphasis here is on gear. As lilcliffy pointed out, one wouldn't embark on a polar expedition with high tech heavy tele gear simply because it is not efficient.

"You are free to do whatever you want once in XCD mode. You're totally free. It's yours to decide.
XCD only requires having the right gear and the right way of using it."

The "right way of using" it would seem to contradict that one is "totally free." But again the emphasis is on the gear, i.e. traditional xc kit.

"The fact of this matter comes from the very roots of Telemark skiing. We seek to preserve those roots and see the techniques used to ski cross-country equipment downhill world-wide."

This is the crux. Preserving roots and the techniques that were born out of those roots. Of course, duck butts and various other contraptions have a debt to those roots, but are so far removed insofar as they don't make for efficient XC that a distinction needs to be made. Yes you can traverse in plastics, NTN and super fat planks, but, given other options, namely--actual xc gear--why would you?

Might be wise to ask, in relation to a much earlier post--if you wouldn't use particular kit to ski 5 miles to do 300' vert and ski 5 miles back, can that kit properly be called xcd?

I am of course new to all this, having come from an alpine dh and ice skating background, and the former only once I reached adulthood. But having learned xc skiing a mere few years ago and reading this forum for 2 years--and given my local terrain--my main goal is to get better at xc skiing and what I believe to be xcd, using the same equipment that spawned the telemark and which teleman and some others are supportive of. Like woodserson said, the joy isn't just turning downhill but being out in the woods (or elsewhere if you live above treeline) and the trek involved. The need for speed mentality, common among bored industralized people, can be met by purely dh, which can be enhanced by more powerful equipment. But that isn't what any of this is about in my opinion. More powerful equipment results necessarily in a loss of connection to the snow because it acts as intermediary. And that is why xcd--preserving the connection and free-spiritedness, whether in the BC or even riding a lift but with centuries-old (or similar enough) technology.

[mca80]

That is also why--naked skiing downhill with no cables or bumpers, depending on your binding, and "eating out of dumpsters" as Al disparaged.

[mca80]

We climbed and we climbed, oh, how we climbed.