All about Telemark Skiing.
Beginning skiing through to my first competition
I started skiing a long, long time ago (not in a galaxy far far away, but shortly after that movie came out nevertheless). I must have been in fourth grade, Northeast Elementary in Farmington NM; one advantage to having moved a lot is being able to focus in on certain events timewise based on where I was going to school at the time. Being a runty kid and pretty shy, I didn't get along too well with anyone at the school, but one girl decided to befriend me anyway. Debbie Tinnin, a cute girl with long, straight blond hair, invited me to go to her grandmother's place up near Bayfield, Colorado. The village (near Vallecito Reservoir) had a small rope-tow hill; and one weekend early in 1978 I ended up (sort-of) skiing for the first time. I'd sure like to find this girl again someday and thank her; she ended up going on to Corvallis and getting a degree in microbiology. I wish her the best of luck in whatever she's doing, and hope she's still skiing these days too.
Over the next three years I went skiing at Purgatory with my dad, before my parents were divorced and I moved down deeper into the desert with my mom. Skiing down the front-side runs (before they developed the back of the mountain), getting back on at the mid-way loading station, and yelling 'Single!' in the doublechair line - all things I remember and miss of the old days of skiing. I actually went back to the base area last summer, 2002, to look around before I did a backpacking trip across the highway into the Weminuche. I was disappointed with the development, like at Keystone, a big ugly condo-hotel right at the base of the mountain; unfortunately, I'm not ready to pack in all of the halfway decent things I've got around for playing Monkey Wrench Gang just yet.
There wasn't much opportunity to ski where my mom had (for whatever godawful reason) picked to live next, southern New Mexico (dust, sand, cockroaches� those were the highlights). It didn't get any better when she decided to work for DoDDS overseas and we ended up in northern Scotland. I think I maybe got in one ski day every two or three years until I graduated high school and finally got to move back to the US.
College was better, though; I hadn't planned to go to school around skiing, didn't even remember or consider it. (I would now - School of Mines, Wasted State, or CU-Boulder - that's the ticket, kiddies.) Ending up in North Country, way upstate New York (closer to Montreal than to Syracuse, and about a ten hour drive from NYC), put me in relative proximity again to some skiing. The group I fell in with was adventurous, to say the least; we'd think nothing of partying until 2, then getting up at 3:30 for a 4-hour drive over to Mad River Glen or Sugarbush in Vermont. I wasn't any good, and I was still skiing on tiny little 135cm kiddy skis, but we were skiing. Some good days were had in Vermont; lots of nasty ones at Whiteface down in Lake Placid, on the bluish ice that passed for snowcover - but it was only an hour and a half away.
Many adventures were had with this skiing group. Teaching newbies to ski with the basics (jump turn and fall down being the basics), and then pushing them straight down a steep skating rink was always amusing. The crazier ones picked it right up this way, not concerned about their own or anyone else's safety. I remember thinking of poaching a closed trail, really an NEI2-3 icefall, right under the lift at Sugarbush with Pete Bischoff, a tall Turk who always wore a sheepskin trenchcoat - with fuzzy white wool cuffs and collar. We made it about twenty feet past the rope when two ski patrollers came over the rise on the lift, yelled and threatened us; we beat a hasty retreat. One weekend trip stands out particularly because we stayed in the unheated concrete bunkhouses at the Fort Ethan Allen firing range - free digs right on the back side of Mount Mannsfield, but cold. Knowing the instructors at the Mountain WarfareCourse came in handy later when we wanted to do training as well - a week-long FTX and school slots. And who of us there will ever forget Pete, raised skiing in New Hampshire and much better than any of the rest of us, at the top of Jay Peak one spring day: "Pete, how's the snow look on that run?" "Come on, best powder I've seen all day." We started down the run, past the point of being able to climb back, and saw nothing but grass and dirt (spring conditions in the East are legend - they keep the trails open even if you have to jump dirt patches or walk off to get down). "Pete, the best powder?!?" "Yeah, right over there, under that stump." He was right, again, of course. One little patch of clean snow hidden by that protruding tree stump.
I skied a lot my first few years out of school, getting 30 to 40 days a year in and improving fairly well in Colorado. I spent lots of time at Breckenridge and A-Basin, learning to turn better and enjoying the steeps and more technical terrain. I was still a hack in the bumps, but slowly getting better. I finally got new front-entry boots to replace the ancient rear-entry ones that Mohsen, my Lebanese friend from college, had bequeathed me; and, we had a ski house. It started with several lieutenants just wanting a place to stay more frequently to avoid the 2-hour drive each way every ski day. Pete, also in Colorado Springs at the time, had one the year prior to my generation's house, in a dumpy little one-bedroom apartment at the Ptarmigan in Breck; we organized one with some other folks the next year, upgrading to a nice house on Peak 7 with two bedrooms and room for a good number of people to crash. The ski house made it so much easier to motivate to go skiing, and we went more and more often. This year, 95-96, we also started doing more winter mountaineering - which opens up so many more stories. Coby's first mountaineering trip, up Mount Bross with Pete and I, spending a couple of thousand dollars at REI literally on the way to the climb to get him outfitted. Petey and I climbing Torrey's from A-Basin in winter, coming back hours late but finding our safety system, people to call SAR if we weren't back, at the Goldpan drinking, Pete and I forgotten. Pete, Coby, and I climbing Lincoln with skis and intentions of skiing down to the car, but my pack (with both ski boots still in it) blowing off the edge of a cliff I had intended to attempt - and the car keys dummy-corded to the pack as well. An emergency purchase of replacement boots for the trip to Banff the following week.
At the end of the 96-97 season I took a month (technically I wasn't allowed to, but I did anyway) and went on my own sort of 'terminal leave' from the army. My grandfather had an old mobile home down in Almont, on the Taylor River between Gunnison and Crested Butte. He's since sold it, right after I invested about $1k in fixing it up and patching the roof, but at the time I was about the only person ever to use it. I found Dmitri, who'd been on Pete's floor freshman year of college, working at the t-shirt shop at the mountain base; along with a couple of others (and occasionally Coby would come up from the Springs) I spent an entire month doing nothing but skiing hard. The last two weeks were free-ski, and I think I got 25 or 26 days of that 30-day period on snow. I remember doing nothing for days on end but riding the Twister lift and working one particular hard bump line until I finally got it down; I remember Coby coming out for a weekend, watching me ski that line that I'd practiced and practiced, and telling me that I had figured it out (big praise from Coby, who spent his high school days ski racing back east). Near the end of the month a small company from Vermont came through demo-ing their 'tele-board,' a mix of snowboard and telemark bindings, ridden aggressively forward. It looked like a Skwal, like a mono-board with one foot behind the other. It was quite engaging. I dropped some disposable income and picked one up - and a pair of old rental leather tele boots, my giant Krispi racers.
I skied a bit more the next year in my downhills, but before the season I had picked up a crap pair of RD Black Canyon Coyotes, 215cm narrow soft skis, and mounted them with BD Pitbull bindings; I was a big sailboat learning to turn and how to do this tele thing efficiently. No one else was skiing tele at the ski areas back in those days, no lessons or clinics. By the end of the year I had pretty much put away my alpine gear in favor of the teles, and was figuring out the bumps, skiing them almost as well as in my downhill gear. One big fall in downhills late the previous spring had blown my left PCL off in a tip-catching cartwheel fall that I walked away from barely - skiing with one leg. This was the year of 55 days of skiing, even exceeding what I had with the Crested Butte time the previous year. I skied at least one day a month for eighteen months straight, until there was no snow to be found anywhere in September 98. Early the next season I won a free slopeside lottery for a pair of Rossi skis, which I kept in plastic through the end of the year - my narrow longboards were doing me just fine! I eventually mounted them the next year and discovered that I could do even more with the short shaped skis, even real junkers like the ones I'd won, than the longboards. Each year a few more people on the hill were teleing, and getting better. The ski house crowd had changed, fewer skiers and more partiers now, in the third year. A couple of us kept the fires going still. We knew it was going downhill when one guy, on New Year's Eve, brought his girlfriend and a dozen other friends up - when there were already eight of us, mostly paying members, there - and the house comfortably slept 8. I wasn't even the one who most wanted to kill him after that night, surprisingly.
Date: 25-26 March, 2000
Location: Arapahoe Basin, East Wall
Venue: 3rd Annual Telemark Free-Skiing Championships
I went up to ski in the telemark free-skiing championships at A-Basin this weekend. I found out it was going to happen about 5 weeks ago, coincidentally about 5 minutes after I busted my left big toe in a big air where I didn't clear the landing. 'Hmm,' I thought, 'sounds like it might be fun.' Of course, after a beer and some vitamin M Jarrett and Casey dragged me back out onto Pali to torture me a little bit more. Yep, broken for sure!!! My bib number was way high, so I was almost at the end of the starting order.
There's not a lot of snow on the east wall this year (or anywhere in Summit for that matter), so there were lots of rocks showing even before the inspection runs and the other 80 or so competition runs. I got in two inspection runs (hiking from the top of Lenawee up to first North Pole Narrows, then again to North Pole main) between 0800 and 0930, and decided I didn't like either. The snow was pretty crappy, icy, and thin; hard to work with. It didn't help that I couldn't turn right because I couldn't bend my right foot back without concentration-breaking pain.
I settled in at the finish corral to watch the girls ski first, with my crazy creek chair, shovel, binoculars, and a couple of beers; they picked some interesting lines that I knew I could ski, and I tentatively picked a couple to keep an eye on for my run. After the girls all went for their qualifying runs, none of the guys had apparently started hiking so they sent all 60 of us up top (13,050'). So started a long, cold day.
I watched everyone go down in front of me, picking some pretty crazy lines (obviously people sponsored by ski companies) and also watched the entry chute to my proposed line go right back down to rock. I ended up sitting on top for 3 hours; when it finally got to my turn, I was pretty cold (couldn't feel my feet except for a dull ache from my toe), thirsty, and it was pretty gray out (no visibility, no shadows, no depth perception).
Well, I ended up going far skier's right, out a couple of traverses where there are normally little closed markers. Now I know why. My turns up top were pretty good, but in the second little chute I wanted to ski there was nothing but 20' of slabby rock below me, and no other way out but down. I stepped down a bit, then turned and jumped in the rest. Amazing I didn't do any damage to my skiis.
I basically ended up falling (controlled side-checks) down the rest of the venue because I couldn't feel my feet, but got up to make some turns down the open part of the wall around the traverses. I went over the kicker they set up for us, and tumbled my landing right down to the finish line. At least I made it down in the time limit.
Well, I felt like I'd skied it pretty badly (mostly my fault, but with several other factors figuring in too), but was pleasantly surprised to find that I hadn't come in dead last. I actually was only 11 points out of making the cut for the second day's skiing (144.5 of 250), 40th place in trials. That gives me something to work on for next year, now that I know some of the ropes.
The next day of course put me right back down: the top 15 or so guys going nuts off of 30-60' rocks and sticking landings. Well, so okay, I've got to lose some of my inhibitions about big air so I can compete with them. Damn all those sponsored types. I'm shooting for around 20th next year, barring any training injuries or broken bones.
The story picks up early the next season, 10 December to be precise, in another chapter.
College was better, though; I hadn't planned to go to school around skiing, didn't even remember or consider it. (I would now - School of Mines, Wasted State, or CU-Boulder - that's the ticket, kiddies.) Ending up in North Country, way upstate New York (closer to Montreal than to Syracuse, and about a ten hour drive from NYC), put me in relative proximity again to some skiing. The group I fell in with was adventurous, to say the least; we'd think nothing of partying until 2, then getting up at 3:30 for a 4-hour drive over to Mad River Glen or Sugarbush in Vermont. I wasn't any good, and I was still skiing on tiny little 135cm kiddy skis, but we were skiing. Some good days were had in Vermont; lots of nasty ones at Whiteface down in Lake Placid, on the bluish ice that passed for snowcover - but it was only an hour and a half away.
Many adventures were had with this skiing group. Teaching newbies to ski with the basics (jump turn and fall down being the basics), and then pushing them straight down a steep skating rink was always amusing. The crazier ones picked it right up this way, not concerned about their own or anyone else's safety. I remember thinking of poaching a closed trail, really an NEI2-3 icefall, right under the lift at Sugarbush with Pete Bischoff, a tall Turk who always wore a sheepskin trenchcoat - with fuzzy white wool cuffs and collar. We made it about twenty feet past the rope when two ski patrollers came over the rise on the lift, yelled and threatened us; we beat a hasty retreat. One weekend trip stands out particularly because we stayed in the unheated concrete bunkhouses at the Fort Ethan Allen firing range - free digs right on the back side of Mount Mannsfield, but cold. Knowing the instructors at the Mountain WarfareCourse came in handy later when we wanted to do training as well - a week-long FTX and school slots. And who of us there will ever forget Pete, raised skiing in New Hampshire and much better than any of the rest of us, at the top of Jay Peak one spring day: "Pete, how's the snow look on that run?" "Come on, best powder I've seen all day." We started down the run, past the point of being able to climb back, and saw nothing but grass and dirt (spring conditions in the East are legend - they keep the trails open even if you have to jump dirt patches or walk off to get down). "Pete, the best powder?!?" "Yeah, right over there, under that stump." He was right, again, of course. One little patch of clean snow hidden by that protruding tree stump.
At the end of the 96-97 season I took a month (technically I wasn't allowed to, but I did anyway) and went on my own sort of 'terminal leave' from the army. My grandfather had an old mobile home down in Almont, on the Taylor River between Gunnison and Crested Butte. He's since sold it, right after I invested about $1k in fixing it up and patching the roof, but at the time I was about the only person ever to use it. I found Dmitri, who'd been on Pete's floor freshman year of college, working at the t-shirt shop at the mountain base; along with a couple of others (and occasionally Coby would come up from the Springs) I spent an entire month doing nothing but skiing hard. The last two weeks were free-ski, and I think I got 25 or 26 days of that 30-day period on snow. I remember doing nothing for days on end but riding the Twister lift and working one particular hard bump line until I finally got it down; I remember Coby coming out for a weekend, watching me ski that line that I'd practiced and practiced, and telling me that I had figured it out (big praise from Coby, who spent his high school days ski racing back east). Near the end of the month a small company from Vermont came through demo-ing their 'tele-board,' a mix of snowboard and telemark bindings, ridden aggressively forward. It looked like a Skwal, like a mono-board with one foot behind the other. It was quite engaging. I dropped some disposable income and picked one up - and a pair of old rental leather tele boots, my giant Krispi racers.
I skied a bit more the next year in my downhills, but before the season I had picked up a crap pair of RD Black Canyon Coyotes, 215cm narrow soft skis, and mounted them with BD Pitbull bindings; I was a big sailboat learning to turn and how to do this tele thing efficiently. No one else was skiing tele at the ski areas back in those days, no lessons or clinics. By the end of the year I had pretty much put away my alpine gear in favor of the teles, and was figuring out the bumps, skiing them almost as well as in my downhill gear. One big fall in downhills late the previous spring had blown my left PCL off in a tip-catching cartwheel fall that I walked away from barely - skiing with one leg. This was the year of 55 days of skiing, even exceeding what I had with the Crested Butte time the previous year. I skied at least one day a month for eighteen months straight, until there was no snow to be found anywhere in September 98. Early the next season I won a free slopeside lottery for a pair of Rossi skis, which I kept in plastic through the end of the year - my narrow longboards were doing me just fine! I eventually mounted them the next year and discovered that I could do even more with the short shaped skis, even real junkers like the ones I'd won, than the longboards. Each year a few more people on the hill were teleing, and getting better. The ski house crowd had changed, fewer skiers and more partiers now, in the third year. A couple of us kept the fires going still. We knew it was going downhill when one guy, on New Year's Eve, brought his girlfriend and a dozen other friends up - when there were already eight of us, mostly paying members, there - and the house comfortably slept 8. I wasn't even the one who most wanted to kill him after that night, surprisingly.
Location: Arapahoe Basin, East Wall