Is Telemark's Unconventional Streak Coming to an End?

No other book may embody telemark in its countercultural formmore than Brad English’s 1984 softcover Total Telemarking. With free-heel pathfinder Doug Buzzell emblazoned on the cover, unironically bespectacled with glacier glasses and holding arms high, driving the sort of freewheeling, lunging turn endemic of the time, the work epitomizes the genuine, unconventional aura that long defined telemark skiing.

But it was Total Telemarking’s words that were most operative. Heady, innovative, and thoughtful, English recruited topics as disparate as biomechanics, Eastern philosophy, and post-Aquarian free-heel dogma, illustrating the high water mark of telemark’s long, countercultural, even spiritual moment. 

Within, English dissected the telemark technique–then achieved solely on skinny, long Nordic skis mounted with three-pin bindings–with a tone and perspective that echoed a subculture then counter to the mainstream skiing experience, with descriptions of telemark’s physicality often going beyond mere utility and into an almost metaphysical realm. “The often complex sequence of actions involved in skiing must be executed on several different planes at the same time, thus balance depends to a great degree on a powerful and flexible form,” English wrote, before eliciting a more spiritual mind-body connection he had encountered in his martial arts studies. “To many cultures, the midsection is considered the center of the spirit, as well as the center of mass. Here is thought to reside another source of power, an inner strength known as prana, chi, or ki, which is said to be an embodiment of the universal life-force,” he noted.

In practice and purpose, Total Telemarking was a definitive symbol of telemark’s zenith. But much has changed since that time. While telemark has long been identified as outside of the mainline skiing narrative, the perhaps appropriating quality of the previous era now seems staid. And the allure of the mainstream has long captured the attention of many free-heelers, including an influential new guard that has done much to change the trajectory of their sport. And their impact–and a long fermenting movement to distance telemark from its heady roots–may soon render the elder notion obsolete, even extinct.

Legendarily, the telemark movement in America started as a rebellion.In the melange of post-Woodstock counterculture and Cold War freedom-seeking, a cadre migrated to the mountains–to Mammoth, Vermont, Crested Butte–who felt stifled by the fixed-heel, resort-bound status quo, and, enchanted with wild snow, looked beyond the lift-served resorts.

“I think our main purpose was really to make the backcountry more accessible,” Rick Borkovec–perhaps the most important of the Crested Butter free-heel progenitors–told Bob Berwyn in Couloir’s December 2001 issue. “We wanted to be able to do everything on one pair of skis.”

But while its utility lay in its free heel, telemark unavoidably philosophically coalesced along lines outside of the mainline ski experience. “Telemark skiing was countercultural. It was a response to the flash of the alpine scene,” the late Paul Parker wrote in his seminal treatise Free-Heel Skiing: Telemark and Parallel Techniques. “Telemarkers were usually younger, backcountry skier types, college students, dope smokers, mountaineers.” Telemark skiing’s very essence rose outside of the mainstream, borne on an anti-establishment ethos that eschewed not only rigid bindings, but a rigid skiing philosophy.

But while telemark has since the beginning of its North American reawakening defined itself as countercultural–and the roots of the modern North American iteration are unavoidably tied to such–there has long been an opposing view on just how out-there telemark should be, both from within and outside of the scene. A morsel of that can even be found in the foreword to Parker’s Free-Heel Skiing, written by, of all people, Yvon Chouinard. Though elevating the style of the strongest telemark skiers of the day, the adventurer and entrepreneur–himself long a telemark skier–felt the need to diminish the vibe and style of the stereotypical flailing free-heeler.

“Not only were these people outskiing nearly everyone on the mountain regardless of gear, but theirs was not the Peruvian-hat, double-poling, Al Jolson-mammy-turn technique I had known,” Chouinard wrote, his description eerily matching the image of Doug Buzzell’s that graced the cover of English’s Total Telemarking.

Now, decades on, after years of countercultural leanings and an often steadfast repudiation of mainline skiing, telemark’s subversive streak is as endangered as ever. Just as the rediscovery of the telemark was rooted in the zeitgeist of the era, the modern approach to free-heel skiing is itself bound to a wider milieu marked by a conventionalism that not only sees the elder hippy-infused telemark ethos as dated, but antithetical to a modern movement that yearns for a stronger connection to the mainstream. It’s a mosaic of factors that may mark the end of telemark’s countercultural narrative.

But this movement away from telemark’s more heady roots has been long in the making. As telemark’s modern gear paradigm coalesced–instigated by Scarpa’s release in 1992 of the Terminator, the first all-plastic telemark boot–it allowed for more aggressive skiing, catalyzing an in-bounds iteration not unlike the alpine discipline. And as the decade wore on, a new take on telemark emerged that not only took to the steeps, park, and air in a fashion similar to the alpining newschool, but also took on a similar brash ethos and revisionist bent.

No other source captured that original telemark newschool of the late nineties and early two-thousands like Descender Magazine, itself brash, humorous, and genuine. In covering the new guard in free-heel skiing, the publication unapologetically looked to the present and the future. And within its pages ran a thread that not only yearned to leave the elder telemark dogma in the past, but lobbed shots at the free-heeling hippy.

In an ironic, anonymous satire entitled “Why I Don’t Tele Anymore” that ran in Descender in 2002, the writer did their part to diminish the typecast free-heeling Aquarian (and telemark in general). “Snowboarding and alpine are superior methods for descending. Randonee is the choice of almost all serious mountaineers. So what's the deal, ‘One Less Car’? Get it together hippies,” they wrote.

But they weren’t finished reminding telemark skiing of its reputation for being the sport of an aged, crunchy demographic.

“You say you're a hippie that likes to go up and down? Try randonee,” the piece continued. “Any hippie worth his weight in hairy arm pit stank should relish opportunities to use skis and crampons at the same time. Not to mention, more riding stability keeps your unshowered ass out of a crevasse. Ever drop a knee with a 60-pound pack green bud-dy? Day in the life of a geezer? It sucks.”

Other articles and interviews in Descender would similarly lament the typecast telemark skier and their method. In another piece also running in 2002, Ben Dolenc, a leading skier of telemark’s new wave, felt the sport’s biggest downfall was then “the old telers who don’t want the sport to change, grow or evolve.” before adding that “the old images sucks too that Tele is for hippies and old people.”

Contemporarily, the modern telemark newschool–a movement that unavoidably borrows much from their predecessors–has themselves begun to echo this sentiment. While the newest guard in telemark has often felt the need to defend themselves against a certain segment of the discourse prone to gatekeeping and history protection, they also seem compelled to diminish the portion of the sport they see as aged, curmudgeonly, and averse to the latest in modern free-heel equipment, with the aged, crummy gear-skiing telemark skier as their foil.

The modern telemark newschool also clamors for mainstream adjacency and acceptance over a countercultural identity, willingly taking to the modern vibe in skiing in a fashion many of their leather bound predecessors did not. That includes a large footprint on social media, that, while allowing for the dispersal of the telemark gospel in a fashion it would otherwise not have, also shows how the modern free-heel ethos has evermore tapped into the wider skiing milieu. 

That energy was recently on display when binding maker ATK teased on Instagram that they would possibly reenter the telemark fold with a new binding, causing the telemark social media sphere to swoon. While innovative and small compared to larger corporate alpine brands, and whose telemark product would certainly be an asset to the sport, ATK embodies not the typically less trodden free-heel brands like Voile and 22 Designs, but one invaluable to the cutting-edge of freeride alpine touring, and has tremendous mainline cache. An asset many in telemark now clamor for.

Coupled with that have come calls for telemark to join the modern, conventional fold. One of those most ardent voices has been podcaster Adam Saurewein–known by his online persona AdamX. Sauerwein has long made the claim that the telemark subculture has hindered development and progress by being overly thrifty and narrowminded. And he has a pointed desire to see telemark ascend into the wider skiing dialogue. Discussing the future of telemark in the second edition of the TELE COLO zine, Sauerwein noted that a more inclusive telemark subculture was necessary for it to grow, adding that the progression of the sport has buoyed its more conventional fortunes.

“From what I’ve seen of the younger telemark generation, we are in good hands. Some of the tricks and styles that I’m starting to see are mind-blowing, and I’m excited to be a witness,” Sauerwein said. “Now, let’s keep pushing the limits and make telemark skiing mainstream.” 

But with that notion of moving forward toward the mainline skiing world comes a certain disdain for the elder telemark guard. “I genuinely believe that skiing has a pulse for the first time in years,” Sauerwein said earlier in the interview. “The ‘newschool’ has grown up and is taking over. The curmudgeons who have been in charge for so long are beginning to fade away or embarrass themselves on the forums.”

But while a certain segment of the modern telemark fold seems bent on eschewing telemark’s previous vibe for something more modern and marketable, other, quieter parts of the sport continue on in much the way they long have; on their own accord, and away from the limelight.

That includes the modern telemark DIY scene, a cadre that has long been at work innovating telemark gear, often influencing the direction that manufacturers take. Many free-heelers in the 80s crafted homebrewed plastic cuffs to pair with their leather footwear to make stouter boots, eventually gaining the attention of bootmaker Merrell whose SuperComp married a stout leader inner boot with a rived plastic cuff.

But more recently, the current band of innovators–now armed with CAD software and 3D printers–has taken to crafting modern telemark gear in response to what was a long and quiet time in the sport’s retail. That includes Robert Tusso and his cheekily named Michael Bolt-on duckbutts–after-market underfoot platforms that make Scarpa’s light, bellowed, but discontinued original F1 and F3 alpine touring boots compatible with the new telemark norm. Other makers–like Jason Quintana, himself an engineer and designer who worked with both Black Diamond and Scarpa–creates his own releasable NTN bindings complete with proprietary geometry on boot and binding to aid in safety release. Tusso’s vision of lighter NTN boots came to fruition with Scarpa’s release of the updated TX Pro in 2024. And perhaps Quintana’s innovations will yet ascend to the retail space someday.

And closer still to the older telemark pulse is cross-country downhill, or XCD skiing; a free-heel, overland style that often employs fish scales over skins for a transitionless skiing experience far from the resorts and the expectations that comes with–not unlike the original telemark scene it descends from. Brands like Altai Skis produce modern options for this group of skiers, whose mellow but not meek searching for turns still humbly embodies complete skiing not for accolade nor cachet, but simply because it’s how they prefer to ski, no matter how unconventional.

But as it stands we reside in a decidedly conventional time. Many a person now inhabits a digital landscape where likes and friend counters–symbols incarnate of conventionalism–mark success. There indeed are a few steadfast souls eschewing smartphones, social media, and mainstream culture. But the transgressive, the subversive, the countercultural–moods that long defined telemark–not only enjoy little regard in the free-heel world, the wider culture itself has all but cast these attributes off. 

Though mellow and disparate, telemark has long endured a struggle between opposing notions: those who dream of a stronger connection to the wider world, and those who enjoy the less traveled path telemark has always afforded. And telemark may indeed benefit from joining the mainstream. With that could come more participation, more gear options, and a stronger and more vibrant subculture. But as the defining characteristics of our time become social media conformity and ascending conspicuous consumption, ever showing their dark underbellies, an unacknowledged need for counterculture and its aversion to authority hides just below the surface. It’s an ethos that many philosophies have long held to. And for many years, that included telemark skiing.