A Telemark Skier Has Their Faith Shaken

I have something to come clean on. And it’s a funny little thing to admit for this monogamous free-heel skier with a dedicated telemark column of all things. This was the first season since I picked up the genuflecting technique that I questioned my faith in telemark skiing.

While it hasn’t amounted to a full blown identity crisis, this soul-searching on what I had long regarded as The Turn of Turns has surprised this devout free-heeler. Perhaps naively, I had thought: “This was it. I’d found in telemark what I had been looking for all this time.”

Now, after years of single-minded devotion and unquestioning immersion in all things telemark, I’m not so sure.

I can hear the tele-detractors give a satisfied told-ya-so, delighting in the admission that some of us telemark skiers might take it too seriously; that we possibly go in too deep on something not only painfully esoteric but also wildly lacking in usefulness. And they might be onto something. Because the classically tele-heterodox thought has indeed entered my mind–of adding an alpine touring setup to my quiver. And that has left this steadfast free-heeler ruminating on where the line between healthy dedication and burn-out-inducing over-obsession may lie.

But while for years I have been amongst the most doctrinaire of telemark skiers, it wasn’t always that way. In fact, I slowly left the alpine world for the free-heel realm, until in one fateful moment I finally and unquestioningly eschewed the alpine method.

That was on a fateful trip to Jackson Hole. On that sojourn some ten years ago, my car was loaded with both telemark and alpine gear. I had recently taken up the turn full time, but my ex-girlfriend (now current wife) then implored me to bring my fixed-heel rig to the demanding slopes of Rendezvous Mountain. There was no way, she thought, I could lunge through both Saturday and Sunday and still have the energy to look for a table at the Manhattan-packed Mangy Moose for après.

As it happened, those double-metal sheet Blizzards stayed in the car all weekend. It was then that I had become a true telemark disciple. My turns were solid; my legs were strong. But, maybe more than anything, my choice was singular. My mind–my very ethos–was now committed to the genuflecting turn. Fully converted, and having little need for alpine skis, I quickly jettisoned them for pennies on the dollar; my last fixed-heel setup unceremoniously leaving my possession.

The subsequent ten years have seen me dive evermore into the telemark deep end. I’ve logged 100-day seasons at Steamboat on Voile Switchback bindings. I’ve skied Cascade Volcanoes in the genuflecting style. And I’ve managed to put a scratch or two on my ice axe, crampons, and tech-toe-mounted telemark rig on Colorado Fourteener scree.

I’ve joined minutiae-dripping telemark forums, collected old free-heel ski setups, even gone back to the basics on three-pin cross-country downhill skis. And almost unbelievably, someone here at POWDER agrees to run my diatribes about all things telemark weekly. It’s indeed been an immersive experience, unencumbered by the thaws of spring or the call of the beach. Telemark has for years been top of mind.

But it went deeper than that. Friends or acquaintances who joked about telemark–however light-heartedly–were promptly greeted with my complete inability at a poker face. I scowled as fellow parents skiing with their kids made quips at my gear; I seethed as coworkers repeated staid jokes first uttered before plastic telemark boots were released. My steadfast piousness was buttressed by an unrelenting and perhaps unnecessary need to defend what I long found was not only a misunderstood pursuit, but one with a meaningfulness that I hadn’t quite found in other things.

So it came as a surprise when I heard the Siren call come not from my long-term obsession, but from what felt like the dark side of the moon. It first happened while skiing with a friend this spring who I hadn’t made turns with in years. Slush bumps beckoned, so we made our way to west-facing runs. As we pointed our skis downvalley, I braced for the rhythmic step of telemarking moguls. But my alpiner friend did me one better. Edging quicker from ski-to-ski than I had seen in what felt like a lifetime, they sped between the bumps with a command I could only dream about. Stopping to take a breath, my disarming comrade gave me props for my turns. But in that moment I knew I couldn’t touch his.

Later on this spring, the backcountry called, sparking to life the neurotic part of my brain that attempts goal-orientation. I made my way back north, again near Jackson Hole, to attempt a laborious climb and ski of a mountain that had long held my imagination. We didn’t quite summit that peak, what with me now being an out of shape dad who still can’t quite muster a good kick turn on frozen snow. After our transition my accomplice made the point that the snow hadn’t quite softened yet, our turn-around being about an hour before the sun’s work had been completed. Regardless, we decided to ski.

My partner led the descent on the nearly 45 degree first pitch, skiing heels-locked using cautious but poised turns. Curious of this trace of hesitance, I dropped in. But it quickly dawned on me why he had skied the line the way he did. Thrown into the backseat by the most variable of snow, I attempted to muster alpine turns using my neutral telemark bindings and soft boots, flailing in the grabby crust. I scampered to the bottom of the slope having attempted zero telemark turns and many poor alpine ones. The disappointment with not making the summit was quickly supplanted by the reality of how shitty I had just skied this iconic mountain. Perhaps I owed it to myself to come back and give it another go–on alpine gear.

Days later, after that sting had subsided, I was back home, and under a budding spring sun I stopped by the post office. In my PO box was a set of replacement rods for one of my tech-toe telemark setups. I was happy they had arrived–the parts would allow me to finally get back on a pair of skis I had long been unable to use.

But when I got home and held those planks in my hands, I thought not of fixing them up for free-heel skiing, but of the possibility of mounting alpine touring heels to them. I had come full circle–in between two trips to Jackson Hole separated by ten years–evolving from the most devoted of telemark adherents who stopped at nothing to genuflect on snow, to maybe another in the long line of abandoners of The Turn.

Changing the method one uses to slide on snow is unquestionably inconsequential. But this doubting of my telemark faith has been a little more complicated than simply trying another technique. Right or wrong, it has felt like a violation of a sacred journey. The committed free-heeler may embody annoying overindulgence to some in the skiing mainstream. But the telemark skier also has long epitomized the most steadfast of skiers; a cadre that has taken to the craft with the utmost passion. And core to that ethos has long been not to lust for the control and poise of our alpining counterparts, but to instead use that as inspiration to ski just as well, only using the telemark technique.

I always took that to heart. But something in me capitulated this season. With some free-heel shame I yielded to the idea that perhaps next year an alpine setup might again find a place amongst the telemark rigs in my garage.

That tinge of remorse has been an interesting experience. While to telemark adeptly requires untold reps in the lunging manner, perhaps bordering on near obsession, my guilt may indeed speak to taking things too far, to the pitfalls of an overly dogmatic view on anything, let alone an outdoor pursuit. Still, I have for years found something deeply meaningful in telemark skiing. In a ski culture rife with crushing mandates of how to dress, act, and ski, I found solace in a free-heel method that not only was itself a craft, but whose own threadbare but vibrant subculture was a beautiful counterpoint to the skiing mainstream. Leaving that behind unavoidably feels apostate.

So as the snow melts I stand at that crossroads, curious of picking the alpine method back up, but certainly not ready to give up on telemark completely. I’ve still been getting out there, using that trusty free-heel technique.

Indeed, on one crisp morning recently I found myself at the top of my typical resort tour. On my feet was again the usual–a telemark setup. But this one–skis mounted with the Meidjo binding–came with an alpine heel. And on my feet were long-since discontinued boots made with both a bellows for free-heeling and a heel interface for the AT method. Either technique could be employed depending on the skier's mood.

I ripped my skins and put my boots into ski mode. And then I had a unique moment to decide which approach to take to on my descent.

And there I stepped into an alpine heel. All over again.