Tag Archives: "telemark quebec"

Telemark is Dead: Response to Powder Skier Magazine

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’ve heard it hundreds of times.

Telemark is dead, or Is telemark dead?

Well, I would agree to some degree.
Yes, it’s on a low.

It was popular around 10-15 years ago. You have to say popular with a sense of proportion. It’s always been marginal. There are no benefits. There never was.
I can’t buy new equipment around here. I live in Quebec City, an 800 000 inhabitants Nordic City in the province that counts the most ski resorts in all North America.

We love skiing in Quebec for sure.
Not telemark.

First, you should go read the article by Hans Ludwig. His arguments are really a Telemark vs alpine skiing trend confrontation.

So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you my perspective on that confrontation.

Gear:

SKI:

This is an interesting area. I would agree that alpine gear as taken a strong turn around 2010, fat skis, light and powerful boots with incredible walk mode have really changed the game. The shift happened, the mass started to go out in the backcountry and most of them were not fit to carry the big alpine gear.

Dynafit already had the lowtech binding but it was not really popular with anybody but ski guides or people earning there turns more than riding a chair lift.

Yes technology killed the attraction for telemark as a BC tool.

TELEMARK:

What funny is that it’s exactly how telemark became popular in the 90s, gear. Plastic boots arrived on the scene and the sport changed forever. That’s faded away now.

As for the point that no major improvements have been made in recent years, I disagree. The bindings have seen major improvements with NTN and TTS alike bindings. The change is BIG. the passion is strong with a lot of small companies, but you have to agree that gear has evolved with the very limited money invested by the big companies. TTS, Bishop and 22 Design, Voile in the US have all released new bindings since 2010. The M Equipment and their Meidjo have been the most creative in my mind. All these companies are still doing business. They have very creative ideas that will become the telemark experience of tomorrow and just like the debate about leather vs plastic boot we had 20 years ago, there will always be a before and after NTN telemark scene.

The missing piece are the boots. We are still with the same design we had 15 years ago. And that’s the most expensive to R&D. It’s the only thing that could kill the sport. If the numbers would get too low, the companies stop making them. Never mind innovate.

Culture

SKI:

But BC was  so marginal, it was for the purist.

Now the masses do both, inbound and outbound. They want a new experience. The resorts are all the same, groomed, pack with lift lines, pricy…

It’s the whole ski industry that’s going down. The numbers are not disastrous but it’s not a booming industry like it was. A lot of people think that snowboarding and parabolic have saved the industry. Now, the lowtech binding is the new buzz. Look at all the big companies, jumping in that direction. We are seeing the small family owned resorts closing and the giant corporations making risky moves with huge investments. Will the industry survive the transformation as a whole? I think it’s fair to ask. Maybe Chinese will save the gear industry. It’s getting very popular over there I hear. But will they come ski in our resorts. Will it be enough to support the whole industry?

TELEMARK is different.

It’s a crow of passionate people. We ski about 3 times more days than any other snowsport. There is no mass. You don’t receive telemark gear for Christmas and try it for 3 days in the holidays. This is what alpine skiing numbers are. Loads of less than 5 days a season skiers. They are the moving force. Will they stay.

And we don’t do it because it’s cool, trendy or eccentric. If you telemark, you know it’s all about the turn. PERIOD. There are no other arguments in favour of the telemark turn. Alpine is just better in every way. And it was in the mid 2000 as well. Gear doesn’t matter. So it will never pass a 5-10% market share we had a decade ago.

Telemark skiers are the most passionate. This is a major plus. I can alpine any run I can telemark. For me it’s just playing the video game with a cheat code. The fun is altered. I would change to split boarding before going to alpine skiing for sure.

We will not make the industry survive or fail. But the skier will.

Future:

SKI:

Who knows? Will the prices keep rising? Will climate change make snowmaking financially viable? Will the new generations keep coming to the super resorts? After all snowboard have hit a plateau too. The Snowsport Industry is asking these same questions right now.

TELEMARK:

There is a lot more telemark skiers than a mere 10 000. This web site alone has 30 000 visitors a month. I have a YouTube video with 200 000 views. That doesn’t look dead to me.
Yes, Vermonters will keep it alive. Eastcoast terrain is perfect for telemark for sure. I hear that the alps have very dynamic festivals, race, communities especially in France, Italy and Austria.

In fact, telemark is really great at gathering people with a different mind set.
Small pockets everywhere.

  • Remember your HAHA moment, how you felt for the first time the telemark turn
  • Remember the gear you use to ski with. And it worked. It’s not about the gear
  • I have never tried to convince people around me to tele. But each year I see newcomers attracted by the smooth, flowy turns.

Conclusion

On the personal, small-scale side, it’s obvious. Telemark will never die. It’s the best feeling. It’s hard, it’s physically and technically harder. But the rewards are making me come for more.

On the global economic scale, it’s harder now. The wheel is turning slower. I don’t think Chris, Pierre or Dave will make the Fortune top 1 000 000 richest people by selling bindings. But if it’s sustainable, we have dedicated companies still pushing the technology.

For those two reasons, I declare that Telemark is alive :)

I should do an interview with 4 ex-skier that have changed to telemark and ask them what they think about the ski industry

…

Leave your comments below.

 

Episode 17: Evans the Snowchaser – The Ultimate Ski Bum

Evans snow face

The Ultimate Ski Bum !

Today we meet with Evans from the blog www.snowchasers.blogspot.ca

This passionate telemark skier as made a life of skiing all winter long, every winter!

This is more than the average Joe. And in my mind, he his the Ultimate Telemark skier. (Debatable in the comments, LOL)

He has skied from Norway to Japan, from Kyrgyzstan to Greece in the last 10 years.

Listen to the Podcast here

 

Links to the Show:

Snowchasers Blog Spot

The Facebook for the Snowchasers

At the end, Evans put the emphasis on Avalanche Awarness. Here’s a list of what he suggests:

Avalanche Canada Courses

BCA, a Gear compagny has some great videos here

Ortovox, Gear compagny, others videos here

The Human Factor Season 1 and Season 2

 

Evans Sponsors

Telemark stance: high or low

tree2

Telemark skiing is a fluid a dynamic movement.

I often related to it as dancing down the mountain. I like the flow and the freedom freeheel telemark gives me. And it’s all about that feeling.

Different styles can be seen and two skiers can easily approach the same terrain differently. One big question remain: Should I go down all the way or should I stay high in my telemark stance ?

Moguls telemark competitionMt Edouard-4

Above: high stance and low stance in moguls.

There’s no easy answer to that. It is generally said that a higher stance limits your efforts and gives you a quicker response should you lose balance. So telemark instructors have preached with a higher stance. Good reasoning. And that’s what I tend to do.

But a lower stance also have lots of advantages:

  1. it’s fun;
  2. it lowers your center of gravity, making balance easier;
  3. it enable you to stay in movement for a longer period during your turn. I call this dynamic balance. If you are moving, dancing, you can stay with the rhythm of the song more easily. The analogy relates to the terrain dictating the technique. We have to adapt to it. If, on the contrary, you pause and change rhythm constantly, making short movements, it will be much harder to stay balanced, especially if there is an unforseen obstacle that creates an unbalance. The slope is not constant, other people around you are not constant, the snow is not constant. Keeping your body in motion is one key to staying balanced and in control. Telemark skiing offers that freedom more than alpine skiing or snowboarding because of the equipment, because of the freeheel. Momentum is an advantage. Getting low sometimes gives you the extra motion you may need.

Getting low, staying high, both have advantages. There is no one way. I teach to stay as high as possible when you can and to get as low as possible when you need. Also, a common mistake is that people will try to stay high all the time and have never experienced to go low. You need both in your tool box.

Finally, telemark skiing is a lot about feeling. Stay up to save energy, respond quickly and get down in technical, unpredictable terrain.

And get some style for the show…

Oh by the way, the guy with the green pants is by far the fastest telemark skier I’ve ever seen in moguls :)

What’s your approach? Leave us a comment below

What creates a great telemark community

Moguls telemark competition

Telemark skiing, unlike main alpine sports, have the opportunity to have a strong community. This is a subculture, a community of interest. A telemark community is like no other.

If you haven’t tried telemark and would like to, one thing you need to know is that there is absolutely no advantages to telemark. Technique is harder, equipment is as heavy or heavier and it’s more strenuous to name a few.

But once you try it, it’s a whole new story. The fun, the feeling, the flow are just out of this world. And the community is different.

Recently, at a telemark festival I attended in La Réserve, I met some newbies. Smile on their faces told the day they just had. They told me just how incredible the people were, sharing tips, helping them as they go. After so many years in the community, I had forgotten that it was something other riders don’t have. Perhaps the Freestyle Park Rats have the same, I honestly don’t know. But telemarkers really have a way to make it happen, to be accessible.

Then I looked around me. It was a telemark festival I had never been. I didn’t know most of the people around me. I realized that I had skied the whole day meeting people, going in crazy places, having fun without a second thought on this being normal or not. That moment, I really had a special feeling about all this: being a telemarker, sharing the sport I like.

The next week, two of my good friends were just back from a ski trip in Utah. The spark in their eyes was intense, the ski had been good. But far more, the people they met, where they got to go with locals, just because they were on tele, really stood out from their stories.

It made me remember my trip last winter to the Alps. The people I met were just incredible, the telemark scene was small but everybody knew each other, told stories, invited us for apres ski… I never thought French skiing would be like that. The mountains, the food, and most of all, the people I met.Nanou smiling on tele

Last weekend was the Rendez-Vous Telemark at my local mountain, Le Massif. It was my turn to welcome people. You then realize that you want to give back as much as you can. Get people to have a great experience. Unfortunately this year, mother nature was not on our side and the skiing was not the greatest. But the weekend was still great. What really made the difference was this community, the warmth of the people at the event, the awesome after party. People shared more than the daily experience and they were easy to speak too. And again I met some folks who weren’t used to all this. It was my turn to smile.

I can’t wait for the next rendez-vous, Absolute Telemark will be at a few more during this season.

What is your favorite cultural story on telemark? Share it below.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our free email updates.