Why Can't Telemark Still Be Heady?

Telemark skiing struggles to be relatable today. Many just can't see why a band of skiers would choose a harder, seemingly archaic technique when something easier is available in alpine skiing. But more than anything, outsiders labor to understand not so much the method as the rationale for telemark, often simplified into far-out, hippie-inspired fragments loosely elevating telemark into a spiritual endeavor. Snippets like free the heel, free the mind abound, oft rebuffed with a trusty refrain: what did the tele skier say when they ran out of weed? These bindings suck!

While the tides seem to be ever so slightly moving in a new direction, telemark has nevertheless long been rejected for its supposed holier-than-thou, heady stance. Former World Telemark Freeskiing champion and writer Megan Michelson even told Powder writer Hans Ludwig “that sticker ‘nobody cares that you tele’ sums it up to me. There was a weird ‘I’m better than you because I’m different’ attitude that went along with the sport, and that definitely turned me off.” Disregarded as superfluous, both in its approach and philosophy, telemark is relegated to the bohemian shadows, cast into the conceited, doobie-filled, ashtray of history.

Telemark once stood on higher ground though. While the sport never enjoyed wide popularity, it was granted a certain clout that came with leading the backcountry skiing movement in America. And while its decline in participation has come chiefly from defections to alpine touring, telemark's long exile has been marked by a repudiation of its ethos - a collective eye roll toward the apparently more spiritual style of skiing. But the no-one-cares-you-tele rejection, the shrugging-off of free-heel skiing's apparent holiness, isn't simply a dismissal of a single, supposedly arrogant method of skiing. It’s a symptom of how the larger outdoor world struggles to digest anything esoteric, spiritual, or funky anymore.

But it wasn't always like that. Our popular culture - especially the outdoor world - once granted much more latitude for experiences to be enjoyed in an abstract, even mystical light. Forces large and small created an atmosphere where mind expansion wasn't just a hippie trip (though it often was), it was a mindset that in at least small ways permeated our society at large. And – though it’s certainly moved on – the roots of the modern outdoor world lie in that funky world.

John Coltrane has nothing to do with skiing. The pioneering giants of modal and avant garde jazz of the 1950s and 1960s exist on a different plane from the privileged world of snow sports. Still, his and other jazz luminaries' influence on the wider culture was undeniable. Jazz as an expression of freedom - as a risk-taking exploration of the limits through earnest improvisation - impacted our culture writ large.

Coltrane's version of jazz was inseparable from his search for the divine. Speaking of his craft, Coltrane once said "my music is the spiritual expression of what I am — my faith, my knowledge, my being. When you begin to see the possibilities of music, you desire to do something really good for people, to help humanity free itself from its hangups.”

His view of the interconnectedness of earthly pursuits with a universal holiness echoed a wider movement in jazz toward an interface between humanity and transcendence. Musicians like Sun Ra - whose Arkestra used the avant garde as a vehicle for exploring an Afro-futuristic, space-travel mysticism - were part of that movement.

Soon, many a rock and roll musician would follow the spiritual bent of these jazz players as the 60s turned late. Echoing Coltrane, David Crosby said "I think music is a lifting force, I think love is the lifting force in the human condition.” Crosby, Stills, and Nash's (and sometimes Young’s) influence was gigantic. Their records spun on millions of turntables, and, like many others of the time, were filled with a particularly Aquarian sentiment. In the wake of Vietnam and the ascension of the counterculture movement, a new, modern vision of consciousness came to pass amongst many, influenced greatly by those who carried the torch first lit by Coltrane and those like him.

As the 70's went on, and the idealism of the Summer of Love waned, a less intense but still free-spirited vision of the human experience remained. This new-age mindfulness was part of a wider revolution that precipitated a movement where many shed the expectations so prevalent in earlier generations. Many chose a path outside of the straight and narrow. Though a few did go all-in; living on communes and disengaging from society, most kept a little closer to the established path while incorporating a hippie inclination to their lives. Some of those people became ski bums. Some of them did so on telemark gear.

Telemark was its own method of backcountry risk-taking, of exploration through improvisation on snow, and it grew on a foundation that was anti-establishment in nature. In his seminal 1988 work Free-Heel Skiing: Telemark and Parallel Techniques, pioneer Paul Parker said telemark "was countercultural. It was a response to the flash of the alpine scene," and was a bastion where "skiers were usually younger, backcountry skier types, college students, dope smokers." OTher works of the era echoed that vibe - the telemark movement was indeed a heady one.

This countercultural sensibility was one that owed much to a jazz-influenced, 60's mindfulness that allowed for toils to be not just for leisure, but for a closer relationship with the universe. In his 1984 treatise, Total Telemarking, Brad English described free-heel skiing as providing "the Zen of the flow and a knowledge of self." Telemark's regenisis was directly related to the consciousness of the moment and reflected the culture at large; a time where a more mystical experience with the outdoors was acceptable.

Free-heel skiing was amongst a cadre of other alternative sports that were conceived or reimagined in this atmosphere. That included rock climbing, especially free climbing. Big walls had been scaled for generations, but classic routes began to be climbed in a brash, countercultural, and independent style in the 1970s, especially in places like Yosemite. A group there eventually became renowned as the legendary Stonemasters, known for their penchant for marijuana and incredibly gutsy climbing. One of the group's most enduring figures was the late Jim Bridwell.

Bridwell was in many ways the face of the Stonemasters - his iconic horseshoe mustache, wild paisley shirts, long hair, and 70s bravado - not to mention his inspired climbing - exemplified the group. Bridwell's quintessential achievement - the first ascent of The Nose of El Capitan in a day in 1975 with John Long and Billy Westbay - marked the pinnacle of climbing in that moment.

Beyond his climbing exploits, Bridwell was something of the psychedelic sage of the group. In a Lodown Magazine piece, he opened up about his use of drugs and their role in his personal life. "I didn’t take drugs just for no reason - we were prepared," Bridwell said. "You prep your mind ’cause you are going into energy levels that are sort of the lower levels of cosmic reality. We’ll call it God or consciousness. But, you are going to see what you are."

Climbing and telemark were cut from the same countercultural cloth - Bridwell even said in the same Lodown piece that "LSD meant the best ski teachers in the world. Man, you could make perfect turns on LSD." It's no coincidence that influential climbing gear manufacturer Chouinard Equipment also made three-pin bindings. Yvon Chouinard himself was a telemark skier and wrote the foreword to Paul Parker's Free-Heel Skiing. It’s also no coincidence that the successor to Chouinard Equipment, Black Diamond, not only continued manufacturing climbing gear, but was also one of the chief telemark equipment firms during the sport's second wave that began in the 1990s.

But while climbing's ethos has roots close to telemark's, the forces of popularity have created a divergence between the two. Free-heel skiing’s last impact on the greater outdoor world was nearly twenty years ago - a time before social media, a time where the hippie ethos had more influence than it does now - when Phish and Panic were at their height; when ski bummery was enjoying its last, truly dirtbag gasp. Climbing's arc has been different.

While there are certainly still heady climbers, the sport has enjoyed a surge in popularity that has ushered a move toward the mainstream over the last several decades - something telemark has never experienced. Climbing has been able to enter the modern world on the back of indoor climbing gym participation and motion pictures illustrating the extreme like Free Solo, making stars out of the likes of Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell - whose images exemplify a more modern vibe than the likes of Bridwell. Climbing's entrance to the mainstream was all the more complete with its inclusion in the summer Olympics in 2020.

Climbing is now in. It's popular. Telemark skiing most certainly is not.

Telemark, instead of retaining its status as countercultural, spiritual skiing, is now often viewed as an anachronism in this modern world. The sport is yet to see a contemporary jolt toward popularity; without a crossover star, without modern cachet, telemark often remains insulated and rooted in an ethos decades old. While a new guard indeed is carrying the torch in its own way, free-heel skiing's previous vision of nirvana through sport is still woven into its essence, no matter how rooted in yesteryear's sensibilities that may be.

So telemark has become an easy target - a punching bag, subject to repeated jokes that tease the telemark skier and their principles. The Unofficial Networks piece 'Still Telemarking, huh?' is one of those articles. In tearing down the sport's quintessence, the piece mockingly states that "'Soul‘ as it refers to telemarking is, in it’s [sic] essence, an out-dated, inadequate, god awful, worthless, defunct, low performance version of it’s [sic] new age counterpart." Telemark skiing comes up against a more jaded, ironic sensibility in the modern outdoor world that has relegated the idealistic free-heel vibe of old to obsolescence.

It would be unfair to label every pinner as a pious follower of The Turn. Many free-heel skiers have never subscribed to telemark as a devotional endeavor. More still are enjoying telemark in a modern style, bearing little relationship to the sports heady roots. Though that begs the question all the more: if some telemark skiers aren't the evangelical-heady types, why has there been so much ire directed at telemark's supposed indulgent, off-camber holiness? Perhaps it's not telemark skiing that has brought this on itself. Maybe it's more that our current world struggles to relate to spiritualism – let alone nerdy obsessiveness – outside the mainstream.

Amidst this headwind, telemark and its remaining adherents and few leaders push to keep the sport relevant, pursuing increased participation and thus demand for new, innovative gear. This pursuit even takes on a revisionist bent at times with some telemark skiers self-loathingly declaring that the old image and ethos is the heaviest of baggage, keeping anyone with a sensibility of what's cool from engaging in a free-heel turn. Alas, the cultural withdrawal is pervasive, even penetrating free minded, free-heel skiing.

But we live in a decidedly post-Aquarian age, and the aura of the moment has indeed taken on a distinctly jade hue. It’s easy to wonder if John Coltrane's spiritual musings would be shrugged off had they occurred now. Today's consumerism, whether in physical form or in the collection of likes and thumbs-ups digitally, stands in stark contrast to pursuing something ephemeral like a funky, unconventional, even spiritual path. There is little place for headiness in our modern world at large, let alone the world of outdoor sports, a place where gear guides and Strava-kudos reign supreme.

Telemark skiing's mystic awakening, though decades ago, in many ways still frames the sport's identity. In many ways, its current culture is still bound to that more idealistic paradigm. Telemark's ethos: backcountry self-sufficiency, going out on one's own, repudiating the straight-and-narrow, living for the moment that is the sweet spot of the turn - remain firmly rooted in a realm outside of the mainstream, down a more esoteric path that was first tread by a group that was unavoidably influenced by a countercultural zeitgeist.

So telemark is an anachronism. Even if great skiing is possible on its modern gear, telemark doesn't fit neatly into the paradigm of the modern outdoor world. It isn't seen as radical, it isn't cool, it's even difficult in certain ways to be a consumerist as a telemark skier - thus the free-heel skier takes to the telemark with the utmost of earnestness - even more fodder for misunderstanding.

As such, telemark has become the foil against which the outdoor world can compare itself to. But the foil goes both ways; telemark is a mirror held up against the outdoor culture, and begs questions of it: has it become too consumerist? Is it overly obsessed with style over substance? Has it become hopelessly addicted to the tangibility and attention that social media affords?

Perhaps it's no coincidence that the telemark turn is a genuflection, a sign of deference, worship, respect. In telemark, many have found their calling, their passion. Some have even found their temple in free-heel skiing. But this phenomenon is not unique to telemark. The modern outdoor world was borne on the same heady winds that first carried free-heel skiing's vibe. While its vibe of old may be on borrowed time, telemark shows how far the contemporary outdoor world has moved on from the ethos that both once shared - a philosophy that favored a simple striving for transcendence in the outdoors over today's more muddied motivations. Yes, telemark may be too 'out there' for today's sensibilities. But the modern outdoor world could stand to remember a thing or two from the humble, heady turn.