Basically it is like slalom (= large turns), in other words, you have a pair of skies and are going downhill, making turns to prevent your premature entry to the afterlife.
The difference is that slalom is usually done with the boots fastened on your skies on both heel and toe. At "Telemark" only the toe is fastened on your ski, and there is a steel wire from the toe around your heel to stabilise it. The boots have to be rather rigid in the heel section. It's a little bit more difficult to manage it, well, if you don't got the latest plastic boots stuff...
Telemark is the type of turns that originated from plain cross country skiing, but today it is extremely difficult to manage on these due to the soft boots commonly used for touring.
Typically, you'll see the skier with one foot behind the other, instead of the parallel footplacement in slalom. I'll just have to put up a picture of it sometime.
Norway
Other pages about Norway:
The Harding Fiddle
Way of life
Language
Trolls
