The great videos from the Timberline telemark weekend sure make me wish I had been there learning this method of sliding down a snowy hillside!
What is the difference between telemark skis and regular "cross country skis"? I tried cross country skis on a trail in Colorado once years ago and found it really difficult with no way to weight the downhill ski. This sure looks different in that respect.
The Colonel

Glad you liked the video -
Telemark skiing is more geared towards downhill ski resort, HOWEVER:
Once you learn to telemark, you can explore the backcountry - using skis with scales or placing skins on your skis for the climb. It's also referred to as: earning your turns.

The truth is that you can make a tele turn using any cross-country ski (with or without metal edges) - in fact, you can also make a tele turn using skating skis. Unfortunately, it's a whole lot faster to learn to make a telemark turn using telemark skis than it is to learn to make a tele turn using x-country skis.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that coming down a mountain with xc skis (tele turns the whole way down) will take great patience, lots of skills to learn, and plenty of time.

Telemark is a whole lot easier (again) and very rewarding for its versatility. Keep in mind that 3000 years ago, many people used telemark skis for traveling (no, not like hotel traveling, more like HUNTING). They are still used today.

You might as well know that Alpine skiing is a very recent sport (considering the invention or a rear binding no sooner than the early 50's or something).

So... when will we have the pleasure of having you try it out?

no - it is like taking the stairs vs. the elevator; working on a farm vs. working in a server farm.

Using a back-saw vs. circular power saw - septic system vs. the bathroom at Deer Valley, Cal Jammer vs. Peter North, DSL vs. Fiber, Kindle vs. iPad, Dolly Parton vs. Kelly Madison, Peter Frampton vs. Van Halen, french kissing vs. kissing a French girl, Honda vs. Harley, and yes finally, not only fully inclusive but including:

granola vs. Opus One and a Large Rib-eye

Opus One and a Large rib eye vs. Kelly Madison

anything vs. Kelly Madison

wait

did i mention Dolly Parton + Kelly Madison ?

oh right - heh

nm

nah I don't like telly

XC is classic or "freestyle"/skate on relatively flat terrain, tele is more tour for turns. Physically its more demanding so the older you get the more sense it makes to AT or Alpine.

I used to tele alltime, now its more for meadow skipping thing for me. I still love to break out my Asnes woodies with the leathers and cruise.

Bottom line is its good to challange yourself and learn new things. One more thing in the old bag of tricks.

favorite bumper stickers seen while wintering out west...

"can't you tele...I'm awesome"

"no one cares that you tele"

Yea - it can be a bit of a cult. Always good to break it up with some days on Alpine or Snowboard.

Last weekend our local French photojournalist was cursed at for being a "&%&!!** telemarker" and then the guy hit him on the crown of his helmet with a ski pole.

A bit extreme.

On the pithy tele slogans I've heard:

"Tele - an excuse to suck"

and for Tucker
"If it were easy it would be called Snowboarding"

...always comes back around to those dam snowboarders...

im considered middle-aged and have never heard or felt that. in fact, I feel that tele is easier on the body, especially the hips, low back, etc. when i have a sore low back, doing alpine turns aggravates it for some reason, while tele turns are fine.

Oh yeah, that another point for the discussion. You can do alpine turns to your hearts content on tele gear. You can't do tele turns on alpine gear. I would say about 25% of my turns per run are alpine depending on conditions, etc. Many folks who convert to tele, completely forget about alpine turns and think they have to only do tele turns. I think that only slows their progress. Keep it mixed up

Both the Telemark turn and the Christiania (parallel, or Christy) turn were invented by Sondre Norheim in the 1860s.

Hannes Schneider is credited with developing the alpine style of skiing in the 1920s. He easily won a big race with his new Arlberg technique while the other racers employed the Telemark turn.

And the speed gap has been widening ever since.

she sez tmarking is stupid

She duznt wait for those who tele.

Who knows what will happen if Crush revisits this thread.

I don't really believe in tattoos (for myself at least...) - but I have been debating about getting one on the lower part of my skull. It would read something like this (while on tele gear):

HONK if parts come off !

I've skied with Kasha. She is super nice as well as a great skier.

I'm glad I started reading this thread from the end, much more interesting! I will note that I saw much fewer tele skiers at cressted butte this week then I have at most east coast resorts. The snowboarders probably outnumbered everyone, which surprised me given the recent news of declining snowboarder numbers. But this style of debating gets my interest, even though i dont care about the topic, I am looking forward to see if the tele skiers rise to the challenge of finding that hot postergirl for the sport.

Today at Snowbird my telemark skills were overmatched. It was the fifth day of a Utah storm cycle and the untracked powder was chest deep. The light was also very flat so that I could not see terrain undulations and was constantly fighting for balance and getting exhausted. Despite having a monster ski, megawatt 188 with a 125 mm waist and 45 mm of rocker, I could not make tele turns comfortably. I reverted to the parallel, THE most powerful turn in skiing. In lesser depths of powder I love the feel of the tele and will use it pretty much exclusively; this was the case the previous 4 days at Alta and Solitude.

Denis,
Well, you sure did hit Utah at the right time, enjoy, my friend.
The Colonel