Serendipity and the Lurk

Just as free-heel bindings and skis were conceived on the ancient necessity for overland winter travel, the roots of the lurk run deeply parallel to the creation of skiing. Though the image has also been interpreted as an individual in a boat, one of the most famous petroglyphs thought to depict a skier–a now destroyed etching in a Norwegian cave dated to at least 2,500 BC–seems to show a figure on two long skis with one implement in their hands.

The written record also tells the tale on the single pole for skiing. In his seminal 1935 work 60 Centuries of Skiing, Charles M. Dudley details the history of traveling on snow by ski in sweeping detail, including accounts of the lurk.

Dudley tells of the Mongolian writer Fadl Allah Rashid ed-Din, who in 1307 wrote of the inhabitants of the snowy mountains of the Altai fabricating boards made of wood called sana. “They fasten them to their feet with straps,” wrote ed-Din, “take a staff in their hand and press this staff against the earth, so that they glide on the upper surface of the snow, as one goes in a canoe on water.”

The use of the lurk indeed had roots as a tool to travel over snow, but may also have evolved also out of the weaponry of war and hunting. Speaking to the ingenuity of the Lapps, Finns, Norse and Swedes on ski, Dudley writes “instead of two poles, they sometimes used, in those days, a heavy single staff, which was as much as eight feet long.”

But runic etchings and the writings of Olaus Magnus, a Swedish writer and cartographer of the 16th century, gives nuance to the history of the lurk. As Dudley illuminates, “they seem to indicate that poles were seldom if ever used at all, and that the hunters went unencumbered except for the spear or the bow and arrow.” A long spear could achieve both goals of the overland, winter hunter–to succeed in capturing game, and to effortlessly move over snow.

Like free-heel skiing itself, the lurk even has a more contemporary arc in the United States. This includes the legendary John Thompson, better known as Snowshoe Thompson. A forefather of skiing in America, the Norwegian’s exploits of carrying mail across California’s Sierra Nevada during the gold rush have become legend. All winter, Thompson would brave the snows of the alpine, traveling on two skis up to ten feet long, plodding along with the help of a long staff.

A February 8th, 1857 article of Hutchings California Magazine on Snowshoe Thompson, quoted by Dudley, describes how the brave mailman skied the snowy slopes. “Upon descending surfaces they [the skis] run with great ease and rapidity, and when the declivity is very great, making it necessary to check the motion by throwing the weight of the skater upon a double handed staff, six feet in length, forced into the snow upon one side,” the article states.

While the necessity of the lurk may be a vestige of skiing’s historical role as a mode of travel in snowy latitudes, the long staff continues to intrigue the telemark skier with its mystery, esotericism, and history. And, on rare occasions, the free-heeler can still be spotted with the ancient, evolved, original hand implement of skiing. Bishop Telemark, with the help of San Juan Sticks, produces their own version of the lurk, continuing a legacy that spans millennia.

The next Christmas I received a surprising gift - my wife had a local ski pole manufacturer create a custom lurk for me. The robust and balanced bamboo–handmade by the folks at Grass Sticks–was a revelatory upgrade from the dingy but eminently usable old ski patrol hardware I had employed before. After a strange and trying winter, I finally had the chance to use the new lurk on a clear and quiet spring day bursting with summer’s promise.

The snow was thick and creamy, a forgiving plane that was much welcomed after two long winters in a row. Held vertically, the 90-inch lurk peered into the cobalt sky. I had spent most of the season with the usual two poles in hand, and, with new-found responsibilities and waning free time during the day, much of my time skiing was spent in a decidedly utilitarian fashion–ascending the ski area before sunrise. Skiing with the lurk marked a refreshing departure.

I at first felt out of place with the beautifully crafted big stick. And the sensation of more eyes on me than usual gave a certain tension, too–the lurk indeed grabs attention. Thus, not unlike the first time I had used a lurk the winter before, I felt some trepidation at the top of the first run that day.

But as I made my first turns that feeling quickly evaporated into the warm spring air. Using the lurk in the soft, over-ripe corn was natural and thrilling. Before, in the deep powder of the previous year, the end of the long staff spent much of its time under the snow’s surface until the lead change, granting an effect not unlike a rudder. Now, a new ideal came with the different conditions. On long arcs or short turns, no more than a tap of the surface felt necessary, the forgiving snow slowing me enough to aid in control. Skiing like this was exciting and beautifully strenuous - the quick touch of the snow surface with the lurk on each turn made balance paramount, lending to a skiing that was at once rousing and committing.

The time came to lean into the old shepherd’s pole, too. Finding my way to a wave feature farther down the mountain, I dropped into the slope. Turning hard into the static roller, I weighted the lurk while turning uphill before shifting my weight suddenly to the other side, becoming airborne for an instant at the top of the crest. Using my momentum, I angled myself back up the slope, again leveraging the lurk on the uphill side before quickly riding the wave back down. It was a feeling that couldn’t have been granted by a single pole, and was not unlike the sensation of surfing an ever-rolling right-breaking wave.

By the end of that afternoon I was something of a lurk skier. While certain conditions will always warrant the use of two poles–especially ascending, or skiing committing terrain–even then I can see where a lurk could still be a good tool to use. And models exist that can be split into two shortened poles, ideal for ridge ascents and touring.

Just like the telemark turn itself is another tool in the arsenal of the snow sportsperson, so, too, does the lurk grant another pathway of genuflecting movement on snow. Its use may always be misinterpreted by some; its detractors may even have a point when they say the ancient stick is not without the drawbacks of misplaced attention and less usability.

But the flow of the turn using the lurk is all its own, and those spoils are in a decidedly telemark paradigm–another interpretation of skiing on the endless palette of freedom on snow.

Arriving home I opened the garage, basking in the sun for a moment as the motor engaged and the door creaked open. I lifted the lurk high into place–horizontally atop my ski rack, right on top of the old patrol bamboo that still lived in that spot. Reminding me of the serendipity that was discovering the lurk.