Once a sport for the dedicated few, telemark skiing is becoming mainstream.

by ELIZABETH HARVEY, Port City Life Magazine

Photos by Dennis Welsh

Art Davis and his wife Leanne Bard, of Yarmouth, were bored with alpine skiing. Like many 30-somethings who grew up alpine skiing, monotony had set in and the thrill was gone.

Rather than give up skiing, they switched to telemark skiing, called tele skiing by the sport's aficionados. They're among a growing number of Mainers making the switch.

Art explains, “I met my wife, and all of her friends were doing this telemark thing. I thought, 'There's no way I can do this. My knee won't be able to handle this.' But, I've never had any problems with it. I'm a much better tele skier than I ever was an alpine skier. I picked it up in a day.

By the end of the day I was cruising along.” But it can be tough to be a beginner again. “It's humbling though,” says Davis. “You think you're a hot shot athlete, then you're a bumbling along eating snow.”

Leanne always loved being out in the snow. “A friend said, just put a pair of tele bindings on a pair of old skis. Arty didn't really enjoy skiing. He was nervous it was going to bother his knees. If anything it made his legs stronger. It made everything fresh again knowing that you could always revert to your parallel turns if you got tired of lunging.”

Rick Boucher, owner of Mahoosuc Mountain Sports in Locke Mills, says the sport is becoming more mainstream. “There are a tremendous amount of college kids coming in. It's starting to change, attracting young people.”

Boucher says there are a lot of young skiers looking for something different. “It's the same profile of the person five years ago who went to snowboarding. Tele is also starting to convert snowboarders who have never skied before. The range of people is wide. From 9 and 10 year old kids to people in their 60's. They used to call tele skis, hippie sticks. It was a counter-culture for awhile. There was a certain profile - usually a guy who didn't want to buy a lift ticket. Now it's everyone from college kids to doctors and lawyers.”

It all began in Norway

Telemark skiing began with a man named Sondre Norheim of Telemark, Norway. In 1835, Sondre jumped off the roof of his cottage on a pair of skis. He was just 10 years old, a daredevil with a playful nature. Sondre later invented the telemark and slalom ski turns and became known as the father of modern skiing. Telemark skiing has been around Maine since the sport was first introduced in New Sweden in the 1870s. Glenn Parkinson, president of the New England Ski Museum and author of “First Tracks: Stories from Maine Skiing Heritage,” says, “Early skiers in Maine toured on the rolling hills in Aroostook County using 10 foot long skis of unequal length, typically 9 1/2 feet and 10 feet and using the tele style turn, though the 10 foot long ski didn't do much turning. It was really a modified step turn.”

The modern rebirth of telemark skiing happened in Crested Butte, Colorado. Parkinson says the telemark turn was better suited for soft snow. “It really did come from the west. In the 70's, the boots were leather and softer. Now the equipment is bigger and stiffer ­ really not much different from downhill.”

Telemark skiing didn't return to Maine until the 1980's. Back then the equipment was much lighter and less cumbersome. In the late 1980's, due to the development of the plastic tele boot, the sport became something an average skier could do.

Biff Higgison, co-director of New England Telemark, an organization of telemark instructors and enthusiasts, says the skis, although longer, were very skinny and light. “The leather boots weren't too far removed from a good pair of hiking boots so were also much lighter than today's plastic telemark boots. I used to be able to drive my car to the slopes in my old leathers. Today's skis are mostly big fat, shaped alpine-style skis and are no lighter than alpine skis. The bindings are still the only part of a telemarkers gear that is still light.”

The funky leather boots drew many to the sport back in the early days.

Boucher remembers walking into a nordic shop one day, “As soon as I saw the nordic gear with metal edges, I knew I had to have a pair.”

Making the switch

Vicki Wharton-Goodman of Auburn has been a ski patroller since 1982. She patrolled at Sugarloaf for 10 years and has been with Mt. Abram for the past eight years. She explains that just carrying the gear from the car to the hill is much easier because it weighs half as much as traditional equipment.

“It's also much lighter on the legs, you can hop around better.”

In fact, most tele skiers start out as alpine skiers. Vicki says the change over from alpine to telemark is natural. “The free heel makes it more versatile. You can ski alpine or using a tele turn. You can do either at any moment, so you always have the option.”

Higgison first learned telemark skiing in the 1970s. “When I first saw Chake (my future wife) telemarking, I thought it was the silliest thing I'd seen in my life,” he says. “But then I tried it and was ready to give up my alpine skis forever. I just fell in love with the turn. These days lots of snowboarders and alpine skiers are coming over to tele skiing. Watch a good telemark skier, they can do anything an alpine skier can do, yet they have the versatility of the free heel. You just can't explain the feeling until you try it. It's like trying to explain dancing.”

There is a common misconception that it is difficult to learn to telemark ski. Vicki says it's easy to learn if you're already a good alpine skier. “It's way more fun than alpine skiing. It gives eastern skiing a new dimension. Skiing on tele is like a whole new sport. It's fun, versatile, and exciting.”

Will Avantaggio of Brunswick started tele skiing in 1993. He says he's been downhill skiing since he was three-years-old, but skiing got boring and he wanted to add a new element and didn't want to snowboard. “Skiing was perfect for my wife and me because telemark equalized us, we were both beginners.”

Another tele convert, Jeff Callahan of South Portland, has been tele skiing for 10 years, “I was bored with downhill and felt like I was too old for snowboarding. I like the challenge and the difficulty ­ both technically and physically. You have to balance on a point, it takes quite a bit of stability. You can ski any type of terrain. It opens up all mountains. It can make any terrain feel challenging.”

Jay York of Portland has been teaching tele skiing for eight years and is certified in both alpine and telemark. “If I could give one piece of advice for anyone learning to tele ski, I'd say there is very little difference in the downhill, tele technique.”

He explains that most problems alpine skiers have with learning how to tele are their problems from alpine skiing. “They never improved their alpine skiing. I'm a strong advocate of people not looking at tele differently.

Most tele lessons start with reintroducing the alpine technique.

Michael Jones, of Aardvark Outfitters in Farmington, likes the modern tele turn. “It uses the same analogy as slalom water skiing, weighting both feet with one foot back, and using the angulation of the upper body to carry a turn,” he says. “It's fresh and new for everybody.” Jones said that before taking a lesson, check if the instructor is tele-certified.

Into the wild

While most people take to the trails, others look to the trees for their telemark adventures. Parkinson explains the growing popularity of backcountry skiing, “There's a difference between tele skiing at ski areas and tele as its done backcountry. In backcountry you use a softer boot which is better suited for climbing. Some tele folks never climb. Backcountry people actually have to climb. They use climbing skins attached to the bottom of their skis to get to top. Then they take skins off and put them in their pocket and off they go.”

He says the real appeal is the flexibility to go off the trail. “The people who use it for mountaineering are sort of an inside club. They prefer skiing off-piste, bushwacking ­ that's part of the fun. Out west, you see a lot of that. In the east they stay more on the trails.”

Kevin Massey of North Yarmouth was an alpine skier until he became a self-taught tele skier. “I needed a change. I banged away at my tele boards and got pretty good.” Then Massey tried some backcountry skiing on Mt. Washington and Mt. Katahdin and was hooked. “Backcountry is totally different feeling of skiing,” Massey says. “I love the solitude of backcountry skiing. You're out there in the wilderness. It's totally different from lift-service skiing.” He also sought out abandoned ski areas. “You know how fisherman have there secret fishing holes? We do to. We usually find them by trial and error, typically old overgrown, abandoned ski slopes that people don't know about.”

Some of the favorite backcountry areas in Maine include Streaked Mountain just outside of South Paris. In the winter it is snow covered and wide open. Another one is Big A. (Agamenticus) in York which used to be a ski area, but closed down in the 1970's. Mt. Washington's Gulf of Slides is a well-known ridge with rock slides and a dozen different trails. Phillips Brook Backcountry Recreation Area in Northern New Hampshire offers more than 75 miles of routes. It claims to be the only hut-to-hut system for trail accessed backcountry skiing east of the Mississippi.

Jones likes to go in the western mountains in Maine, and says that White Gap, outside Rumford and the back side of Saddleback are great. He is also scouting Mt. Katahdin to start leading trips to the North Basin near Chimney Pond.

Boucher says people have to use good judgment and pay close attention to the weather when backcountry skiing. “You can get yourself into trouble pretty quickly,” he says. “I recommend folks start small in the backcountry and realize that skiing is only part of it.”

New England Telemark will be offering private and group telemark lessons all season long at most ski areas in Maine and New Hampshire. They are also presenting three telemark festivals this season. The first festival of the season, The Maine Telemark Festival, will take place January 11-12 at Sunday River ski area. The second festival and flagship event is The New England Telemark Festival and will be hosted by New Hampshire's largest ski area Bretton Woods, Feb. 1-2. The third festival is the Vermont Telemark Festival and will be hosted by Stowe Mountain Resort, April 5-6.

The festivals will also offer free demo gear, races, costume contests, and mogul competitions and a prize ceremony and party. Another draw is a women's clinic by Heather Paul, one of the two best-known women tele racers in the country.

Each of the festivals will feature free clinics taught by some of New England's finest telemark instructors. Clinics are for all abilities and there will be special cross-over clinics for the alpine skier wishing to learn telemark. “Telemark is no longer just for the granola eating bark-bashers,” says Higgison. “With the fatter shaped skis and plastic boots, alpine skiers are coming over in droves.”

For more information, check out New England Telemark's Web site, www.netelemark.com, or contact Higgison at 751-9319 or ski@netelemark.com. Area tele skiing shops include Allspeed Ski and Bike in Portland (878-8741); Mahoosuc Mountain Sports in Locke Mills (875-3786) and Aardvark Outfitters in Farmington (778-3330).

©2003 Port City Life Magazine