Telemark: Norwegian for 'Hey guys, wait up!'

Backcountry.com athlete Nick Devore really isn't that funny. But he can ski real good.

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First Summit Park Turns Of 08/09

When the sun came out Sunday afternoon, a few friends and I decided to throw our skis and skins into the truck and drive up to Summit Park on the outskirts of Park City to find out how our favorite playground fared with the weekend storm.

After seeing first hand the results of a snow pit in the Cottonwoods a week ago, I wasn’t interested in going anywhere near steep, wind-loaded slopes.

Our biggest concern with Summit Park was mainly if there was enough snow without much of a base to begin with. We were starting at 7,200 hundred feet, so prior to last weekend’s dump the mountain would have been bare.



I had my doubts when we dragged the skis out of the car, but surprisingly the foot and a half that fell Saturday held up well enough for a skin track and some great turns up high.



Up on top (approximately 8,200 ft.) the turns were soft and deep. Still – there was no way I was dropping a knee into a telemark turn - that's going to have to wait for at least another storm cycle.

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Nick Devore Kills a binding mount in Jackson Freesking Open

I had to watch it twice. Nick Devore, Backcountry.com athlete and a crazy sick tele skier stomped a nice clean air and then basically pointed it to the bottom during the superfinals run of the Jackson Freeskiing Open. As he entered the finish area his ski popped off.

But it's not what you think. His Black Diamond telemark binding was still attached to his foot! He had basically skied most of the run with a binding that was about to pull off of the ski. Given the steepness of the venue and the conditions it's no wonder the other competitors and the event announcers were so blown away.

The other competitor's facial expression in the video is priceless. Check it out:



Here's what Nick had to say about the run:

I dropped into my superfinals run, made some turns through the upper moguls and then cut left, droping my first air, I stomped it and hit my second air and droped my knee to make a turn and shut some speed down and there was no tension from my binding, it felt like my binding had gone into walk mode or just broken, so with little time to react I aired my last clif and straightlined toward the finish, I was going super fast and almost exploded multiple times but some how held it together and turned enough to make it through the finish line...

Check out the rest of the story from Nick Devore's blog.

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The Future of Telemark Skiing

In keeping with the Telemark theme, there is a Tele Pow Wow at The Canyons Resort coming up March 11. It's never too young to get your grom on Tele.

From what I can gather, it's geared towards confident alpine skiers and snowboarders in grades six through nine, and telemark skiers of all abilities. Essentially it's the televangilization of the youth of Utah as PC Telemark looks to form the 2007-08 Youth Tele Tribe, a new youth winter sports organization.

So get your telemark gear at backcountry.com, check out the details at PC Telemark and get your grom ripping with a bended knee.

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Telemark Skiing is King

Despite the ongoing telemark war (mostly among online forums and tele tech geeks the world around) some guys are still out there killing it on Telemark gear, not worrying about which sort of boot interface binding system techno jargin that "insert your favorite brand here" makes which they are currently employing to schralp deep pow with.

Evidence.

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All We Need is Love in the Backcountry

At the end of the day, or the beginning if you prefer to ski powder during the wee hours of the morning, backcountry skiing is about getting up so you can enjoy the down. Although images of "the masses" from the land beyond the lifts would tell another story, the backcountry skiing community is a small one. Too small in fact for the dividing asunder and the "he said she said" that seems to be going on. But the waters have been stirred and are now muddy.

From TelemarkTips.com's recent article comes this rhetoric:

This "Battle of the Titans" is a war for the hearts and minds of a future generation of telemark skiers yet to discover the sport. Viewed as such, it becomes a little less threatening and far more fun to follow along. Indeed, most of us had no idea it had already begun, but as can be seen from the narrative above, the battle has been underway for many months, perhaps even years.

Mike Geraci at Base Camp Communications offers an olive branch on behalf of Scarpa to the Telemark world. Why is an olive branch needed? I think it's a "better now than later" and to draw a line in the sand. Speculation by the masses will only lead to confusion and yes, more speculation.

By now you may be wondering what exactly I'm talking about and who exactly cares. It's the Black Diamond v. Scarpa v. Garmont v. Rotefella v...blah, blah, blah and well, apparently some people care, myself not included.

I love Black Diamond. I use their gloves, the Avalung, the Slide Pack, a ratty beanie, a couple of tee shirts, their Flick-Lock Carbon Fiber poles, their probe pole. I'm a regular BD die hard.

I also love Scarpa boots. The Scarpa Spirit 3 is my new love after having owned and skied the Matrix (light and fast), Denali (original red), Denali XT (smurf blue), and the Denali TT (red again).

But then again as you can tell from the link, I fixed the heel and fixed the problem long ago. How's that for love?

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