Telemark Needs Its Own Media

When I first came into this little telemark writing journey nearly two years ago, I had the notion that many telemark skiers share; one that seems to be so part of the wider discussion on free-heel skiing as to sparkle in its ether. That telemark needs to grow.  And as a budding telemark blogger I opined that if telemark was to indeed increase participation it needed not to retreat into a specific, insulated industry.  It needed instead to become part of the wider discussion.

Telemark was “woefully isolated, and often that is self-inflicted,” I wrote in one of my first posts. “There is such an emphasis on things telemark-specific that the sport finds itself speaking in tongues that are indiscernible to the wider ski world, about new gear most can’t quite understand, leading to further seclusion and continued cult status. Telemark needs a change in the discussion, toward approachability.”

But over time I have come to find that while certain telemark stories should indeed find themselves amongst and adjacent to those of the wider skiing world, we also need our own sustainable, long-lasting media that isn't so much aimed at growing telemark as it is focused on recording its aura and progression.  Something that not only investigates telemark gear and culture, but also provides a continuity, acting as both a vehicle for discussing the cutting-edge and as an archive.  And telemark will never get that from mainstream ski media.  It’s up to us to create it.

I was primed to feel that telemark needed something.  As a newer telemark skier during the retrograde 2010s, one who bought their first boots and skis at the local second-hand store, I was like many of my cadre; blissfully unaware that behind the scenes a revolution in gear was taking place. I was completely ignorant of he late-coming maturity of the NTN platform, not to mention the ascendance of free-heel tech-toe bindings.  Thus my misgivings about the lowly state of telemark, especailly considering the only gear I knew of was of the 75mm variety. Riding the gondola one morning with a fellow duckbill-user, I stated that I was feeling the need to begin collecting gear. “I would start if I were you,” they agreed.  I thus began hoarding my favorite 75mm gear, fearing manufacturers would soon abandon The Turn, fully believing that a telemark apocalypse was near.  

I still love my 75mm boots and bindings - and actually prefer they way they ski to this day (more on that another time). But I eventually came to discover that telemark gear had in fact modernized markedly, offering great skiing options that had features 75mm couldn't quite emulate.

Around the start of COVID and the stay-at-home orders that ensued, I was in the market for a new touring-oriented telemark setup.  I, the archetypically oblivious telemark skier, retreated into Excel spreadsheets, comparing weights and features of duckbilled binding/boot/ski permutations to see what I could do to shave weight. 

But I would soon be made aware of the innovations in progress in telemark gear. My research brought me to two websites that would forever change how I thought of the telemark world: Craig Dostie’s seminal free-heel leaning blog EarnYourTurns, and the adjacent forum Backcountry Talk.  Informed of the new guard in gear from EYT, I found the discussion on telemark – gear, ethos and all – at Backcountry Talk to be fascinating.  Hoping to find more information, I began searching for telemark articles at mainstream outlets. But the sport's retrograde was then glaringly evident. At the time, Powder had run only one article on the topic in the previous many years - Hans Ludwig’s provocative essay and roundtable “Telemark Skiing is Dead.” And I couldn’t find a piece on Outside's online database about telemark more recent than a review entitled “The 3 Best Telemark Bindings of 2013.” All the while, a revolution was taking place in free-heel equipment, far from the eyes of the skiing mainstream.

From there I discovered Josh Madsen’s boutique telemark ski shop Freeheel Life and its robust media arm. Both Madsen and the posters on the forum often shared a common refrain: contrary to wider perceptions, telemark was enjoying a gear renaissance.  But it needed to grow if it hoped to sustain.  And something needed to spur that on, be it more widely available rentals, a cultural détente with the wider ski world, a new boot.

Having never given it a thought before, I picked up the torch, taking that thinking on myself.  And after digesting an absolute plethora of telemark content, I came to my own conclusions on the matter: I diverged from Madsen’s mantra of a telemark-specific industry, and felt the sport would be best served if it could somehow bridge the gap of isolation it found itself mired in and join the broader conversation in skiing. 

“We need big glossy photos of people ripping telemark next to images of strong alpine skiing,” I would later write. “The sport needs articles about figures and achievements in free-heel skiing with pieces on the wider ski culture. If telemark is to grow – and it needs to – it needs to be part of the wider discussion on skiing.”

But as time has gone by, and even as telemark has made great strides in exposure, seeming to finally shed much of its negative perception, I’ve seen not only how the wider world of ski media stopped covering the sport for nearly a decade.  It still only goes so far in covering telemark, making a free-heel specific conduit not only desirable, but necessary, no matter how small it may be.

For one - and not surprisingly - amongst the decision makers at all the mainstream ski outlets, there is not one who is a dedicated telemark skier.  While some editors thankfully do allow coverage of The Turn, most have the same level of exposure to telemark as the broader skiing populace; the culture's collection of repeated tele jokes, and a distant, superficial understanding of what telemark skiing is, if it crosses their mind at all.  Some outdoor writers themselves have even aided in continuing the skewed perception telemark has endured, like Paddy O’Connell and his piece “Telemark Skier, Why Are You The Way You Are?”, a staid attempt at humor that certainly hit with many, including telemark skiers . But its publication showed how telemark still sees little coverage in the wider ski world outside of being used as a provocateur for reaction-based, meme-able, ironic content.

I see that as evidence that the minutiae of the telemark world cannot be left to the mainstream ski media.  Aspirational articles that appeal broadly using telemark as vehicle should absolutely find a home in those publications.  But beyond that our world and its information are too esoteric for the mainstream outdoor publications; we cannot expect them to carry our voice outside of occasional forays.  They are not beholden to our subculture, and if history is any guide, will only too easily drop our narrative when things aren't as exciting.  

Some may argue that in this modern, social media-beholden world of commerce - where the mantra no press is bad press reigns ever supreme - that telemark should lean into being clickable; that the ironic force of our subculture can’t be retreated from and has become integral to garnering attention.  An inescapable necessity of social media marketing.

But while this paradigm is inarguably part of the fabric of mass consumption, I disagree it can be pressed into catapulting free-heel skiing into the mainstream.  Not only is telemark esoteric, but it has always been about personal adventure over the following of any herd - borne not on attention-grabbing desires, but earnest exploration.

On that same Backcountry Talk forum I came to lean on heavily for the telemark pulse that spoke to me, an astute user, with deep experience in the telemark world - and not to mention a virtuosic ability to ski in the cross-country downhill method - wrote “in all those years selling the tele boots, skis and bindings, and also teaching and sharing the sport with many others, the abiding motivation for people seemed to be engaging in something new - not so much the novelty per se, but again for the sense of adventure. Telemark carried a certain mystique, drawing the intrepid, the under-stimulated and the unconventional.”  The telemark journey, at its core, is one beholden to personal freedom and exploration. And while its stories are eminently relatable, in practice and vibe it is inextricably linked to forging a path outside of the one most take.

So we must create a conduit for telemark and its information, nurturing its vibe and subculture by fostering media dedicated to the sport. The onus is on us – we can write and make films and research and create our own archive of telemark information. And relatable, aspirational stories of telemark skiing can and should find their way into the mainstream dialogue.  But at a certain level the telemark discussion on gear minutia and the convoluted cultural milieu are too esoteric for wider consumption.  Still, they need to be discussed, written about, and referrable.  Without these sources - like EarnYourTurns, which still exists as an archive, or Telemark Skier Magazine, which sadly doesn’t - our sport has little anchor for its culture and vibe; present, past, or future.