The Convergence - Telemark’s Fitful if Symbiotic Journey Toward Alpine

In the midst of the 2016/2017 ski season – one which saw massive snows in the Sierra and New England and gave much of the West a tremendous winter – a small piece ran in the February issue of Powder.  Long time staff writer Hans Ludwig – better known by his famous moniker and sardonic column ‘The Jaded Local,’ penned a piece and roundtable discussion with the decidedly provocative title ‘Telemark Skiing is Dead.’

The article’s impact reverberated through the sparse culture that is free-heel skiing.  Many decried Ludwig’s takes – some took issue with the assertion that “there is no new gear of note,” an opinion that seemed to gloss over telemark’s entry into the world of two-pin touring bindings, or even the advent of the New Telemark Norm (NTN), then a decade old.  Others were incredulous of the panel Ludwig chose, which included many former telemark skiers, with the remaining free-heelers seemingly of a contrarian bent.  Podcast, blog post, and forum thread has long since referenced this mini-watershed moment in telemark-related media, with nearly all from a telemark perspective casting the article off as ignorant to the current scope of telemark skiing; gear, ethos, and all.

But beyond the clear hyperbole of the title and seemingly negative-leaning panel, Ludwig’s introduction to the piece was sharp, and contained an insightful snippet on telemark’s arc. “My favorite theory is that by trying to become equivalent in performance to alpine gear, telemarking rationalized itself out of existence,” Ludwig wrote.

Ludwig had made a succinct and poignant observation. A veteran of the ski world for decades – back to days long before telemark’s current state – he had surely noticed how the plastic boot revolution in telemark turned the hardscrabble leather and three-pin turn into a world dominated by resort-bound, burly cable / cartridge bindings and high, stiff boots.  A paradigm that had brought the ancient turn to a renewed low tide.

But telemark had long borrowed from alpine, with practitioners yearning for myriad choices the 'other side' long enjoyed, often time options the small world of telemark manufacturing was slow to move toward. Telemark borrowed much from alpine, and, at least from a gear perspective, seemed better for it.

Still, had free-heel skiing truly become too closely related to alpine to remain independently relevant as a subsport and subculture?  Or was the interchange between the two disciplines integral to telemark’s movement forward?

Over time, telemark has routinely crossed the aisle toward the fixed-heel world. From plastic boots to dreams of weight equivalence - even a hoped-for cultural détente by those tired of hippy stereotypes - a wing of telemark has long grappled with the culture's status and the condition of its gear, wondering what the route forward might be.  And the alpine world – with its robust participation and myriad gear options – is an easy place to look for solutions. 

Whether via equipment advents or cultural evolution, telemark’s modern path has thus often reacted to alpine's.  Advents like the New Telemark Norm (NTN) was developed some twenty years ago, envisioned as a responsive, rigid replacement to 75mm bindings, buttressed by its myriad alpine-derived features like safety release, ski brakes, and genuflectless step-in functionality. Moreover, the aged nature of telemark’s countercultural old guard has left an identify vacuum often filled by a more modern bent – one not dissimilar to alpine’s.

But telemark once stood more separate, and indeed often cast itself as distinct from alpine. While the relationship has often been marked by some level of partnership, telemark long was positioned as an alternative.  Borne on its countercultural reawakening, telemark in America saw itself as the headier option compared to the world of alpine skiing with its confined ethos, boundaries, and heels.  Steve Barnett’s Cross Country Downhill, one of the original treatises on the burgeoning American free-heel movement in the 1970s, illustrated the divergent view – both culturally and gear-based – that telemark took. 

The book was written for backcountry skiers of both free and fixed-heel persuasions, with Barnett saying that the “aim of Cross-Country Downhill is to supply a direction of learning for both Alpine and Nordic skiers.”  But while Barnett’s work, like Paul Parker’s later seminal instructional book Free-Heel Skiing: Telemark and Parallel Techniques, may have included alpine methods in their pages, their bent was of a decidedly off-piste and off-the-beaten-path ethos. 

Barnett’s techniques were put forth for whom he referred to as the ‘wilderness skier,’ one who not only skied in a free-heel manner, but who purposefully found themselves away from the groomed trails of the resort, in wild, powder snow. As such, the gear used and the mindset employed were cut from a different cloth. "This book emphasizes that it is possible to substitute technique for equipment," Barnett wrote, "to an extent thought impossible by most Alpine skiers addicted to their sophisticated gear.”

Moreover, Barnett's work emphasized telemark's backcountry nature, then integral to the spirit of the technique. “The telemark is at its best in soft snow," Barnett wrote, continuing, "the American West - with its powder snow and vast expanses – is ideal for telemark skiing and has thus supported the rebirth of the telemark among a new generation of Nordic skiers.”  This stood in contrast to most of the American skiing public, who was generations from discovering the backcountry.

This vibe continued into the 1990s, with many a skier seeing telemark as not only nobler path, but one that offered something more relatable.  In a blog post that later ran on Craig Dostie’s EarnYourTurns, Drew Simmons wrote in The Sweet Spot in 2015 that while he couldn’t quite remember the reason he first tried telemark, what he did remember was “being vaguely disenfranchised by skiing in general, turned off by the euro-style stretch pants, the macho swagger that went along with 220 cm skis, and the hey-I-went-to-a-ski-academy perfect turners.”

But since that time telemark has markedly converged toward alpine, both from a gear perspective, but also culturally. Exhibit A being Scarpa’s introduction of the Terminator – the first all-plastic telemark boot – in 1992.  While many telemark skiers were perfectly happy with their leather boots, occasionally taking the DIY path, creating plastic cuffs to improve stiffness (before manufacturers followed suit), more than a few norpine types saw the power of alpine boots as a thing to desire.

What ensued was the cascade of events Ludwig alluded to in his 2016 Powder piece.  Telemark gear became permanently focused - at least in part - toward performance parity with its alpine brethren. The original Terminator – a low, two buckle boot that was a first step in bridging the performance gap – soon gave way to heavier, taller boots, like the T2, culminating in the aughts with the T-Race. Originally a three-buckle model, it was redesigned in the middle of the decade to include a forth buckle. Save for the bellows, the T-Race was mostly indistinguishable from an alpine boot.  Gear like this granted the telemark skier a level of speed and control not only vastly improved from the days of leather, but reminiscent of alpine.

Telemark was then enjoying the final days of its Second Wave, a halcyon-echo brought forth by not just the new guard in gear that allowed for more aggressive skiing, but also from a backcountry awakening in the greater ski world.  But the advent of big tele boots, fat skis, and resistive, cable-cartridge bindings to drive them had also brought the telemark world fully into a resort paradigm.  Following that trend would have consequences for telemark, a turn that had once relied on light gear and nimble technique. Moving forward would again require following alpine.

But since that time telemark has markedly converged toward alpine, both from a gear perspective, but also culturally.

Telemark’s subsequent retrograde is well-known and documented in the subculture. Telemark gear – made popular by the simple fact that it had a free-heel that allowed forward locomotion with climbing skins affixed – had also entered a heavier paradigm to make for stronger, alpine-esque skiing.  But the backcountry craze in America was only beginning, and gear options were at first limited.  Around the time the T-Race was introduced, a minuscule but revolutionary alpine touring system first developed by Fritz Barthel in the 1980s finally found its footing.  Dynafit low-tech touring bindings had at long last hit the big-time.

Telemark gear was now marooned as subpar backcountry equipment.  Not only did the masses finally realize they didn’t need the free-heel turn to backcountry ski, two-pin touring gear was lighter and offered far more efficient strides on the skin track. Subsequently, most large manufacturers abandoned their telemark departments.  But a fresh advent – one that again was in part designed to offer the telemark skier more alpine-derived features – would eventually move free-heel skiing even closer to the other realm.  This was the introduction of the New Telemark Norm – NTN.

With its cableless underfoot connection, NTN not only gave the skier improved downhill control, the system allowed for features that before only alpine skiers had enjoyed.  But the platform was at first as heavy and resort-oriented as the day’s legacy gear.  Again, telemark skiers looked to what their alpine counterparts enjoyed, this time in the backcountry – two-pin touring, and light, flexible boots – and started tinkering.

What’s ensured is another revolution in telemark gear – not only have the alpine features that NTN allows been fully realized, but telemark bindings now exist that incorporate the very piece of equipment that spun telemark off into its retrograde: the two-pin Dynafit binding.  And as tinkerers have looked for lighter, more touring-oriented boots – something not readily available at retail – they have come upon old stock Scarpa F1 and F3s, early AT boots from Scarpa with a bellows for ergonomics in the stride.  Tinkering with these boots and marrying them with a two-pin telemark binding has brought the sport into the modern touring fold, albeit often in the most DIY of fashions. Regardless, the advents owe much to their original alpine genesis.

There is little doubt that telemark gear has routinely mirrored the alpine world. And the equipment has often seen great improvements from attempting to match alpine’s performance.  Over decades, telemark gear became more downhill-capable before evolving into a lighter and backcountry-friendly paradigm, thanks in large part to what was happening in the fixed-heel world. And with new bindings like the Meidjo and its alpine heel, coupled with Crispi boots with their rear AT fittings, a skiing system is even possible at retail that can both alpine and telemark. The détente appears to be full realized.

And not just on the gear front - for the newer generations of free-heel skiers, a differentiation between a telemark and alpine ethos appears to be moot. The counterculture that telemark long leaned on has mostly abated, its original vibe and subsequent echoes fading into the past.  And telemark's previous stance as being staunchly independent seems similarly out dated. What’s left is a much different sensibility. Telemark as a countercultural endeavor not only has little appeal now, but may be antiquated to the point of obsolescence for the new guard.

Hans Ludwig’s original theory – that telemark is a separate endeavor and doomed to desuetude from striving to become too alike alpine skiing – lingers in the ears of a few free-heelers, themselves perhaps a little heady and long in the tooth. There doesn’t quite remain the same counter sub-culture that once encapsulated telemark – jam bands long ago became passe, and the notion of any true hippy movement long ago departed the milieu.

Still, telemark has reached an exciting modern gear paradigm, and it continues to be a bastion of free-heel skiing; much of the new gear allows for sweet, sensual telemark turns.  What’s next is anyone’s guess – the telemark continues on regardless, as it always has.  Perhaps it does so with more options to both telemark and alpine on the same setup.  Or maybe soon we’ll see a ski world where the free-heel technique is not one single devotion, cast off by many as too heavy, too weird, too heady; instead it may be but an arrow in the quiver of many a skier based on conditions, circumstances, mood.

A new world is always ahead in telemark, often spurred on by those looking around and onward.  Perhaps, as a fresh era of evolution begins, where the vibe and gear of telemark and alpine become more alike, then maybe the distinction between free-heel and alpine skiing – always a construct – may all the more come down.