MegèveSki

Telemarktastic

Today Miche and I had a telemark lesson with Lucy. In summary; it wasn't as hard or tiring as we had expected...

Trying out some alternative disciplines was quite high on my list of things to do. I've done a bit of snowboarding in the past but never tried telemark skiing and quite fancied having a go. Miche initially didn't fancy telemark at all but over the last few days has changed her mind and decided to give it a go too. We hired the gear at Janin Sport in town and met Lucy at the base of Mont d'Arbois at 9.30 this morning.

It's strange being a beginner again. The first, unexpected, problem was carrying the skis; we're used to alpine skis which have releasable bindings and integrated brakes, the brakes mean that the skis clip together nicely and become one thing to carry rather than two. Telemark bindings dont have brakes (in alpine bindings the heel of the ski boot holds the break in the 'up' position whilst skiing and when the boot comes out the brake clicks down, since telemark bindings allow the heel to lift off of the ski during normal use this arrangement clearly wouldn't work...) So Telemark skis are two things whilst they're being carried and, for someone used to alpine skis, this can lead to some amusing "I'm really crap and new at this lark" moments...

The next problem was walking. Telemark boots bend to allow you to lift your heel off of the ski whilst turning, this means that the ski boot swagger that you can do by planting your heel and rolling to the toe just doesn't work in telemark boots, you get halfway to the toe and the the boot bends and you stumble foward like a numpty... Then there's the strangely clown feet feeling of having longer tabs on the front of the boots for inserting into the bindings; going up stairs is interesting when you keep stubbing your boots on the next step...

Then you need to get into the bindings, no step in and listen for the reassuring clicks, you need to push the long tabs on the toes of the boots into the binding (whilst preventing the ski from sliding off on its own - more newby moments) and then clip the sprung cable over the heel (a bit like a snow blade/bigfoot binding) and then attach the leash from the ski to the boot - though later on I went for attaching the leash first at that meant that I didn't have to chase the ski around quite so much...

The most obvious difference between telemark and alpine skiing is that your heel is free to lift up off of the ski at any time; this makes it easy to use telemark skis for touring as you can attach skins to the skis so that they dont slip backwards and then walk up the slope in them... It also means that the way you turn is different, lots of lunging down the slope, lifting the inside heel and bending the knees; it looks really elegant and feels pretty good too, when it works...

Lucy explained that it's easier to learn telemark turns on steeper slopes than on baby slopes as you don't need to work or bend quite so much; we headed off down the blue and then the red towards the Betex bubble. I found it quite reassuring that if you brought your weight back a little you could ski almost "normally" in an alpine style; though you have to be careful not to push forward hard or your heels can come up and you can go straight over the front of the skis (no, I didn't do it, but I had a few very close shaves and good recoveries...). Once we got used to the strangeness of having your down hill ski ahead of the up hill ski and lifting your up hill heel it started to come together quite nicely (I'm sure we still looked ridiculous but it felt better and more controlled).

We took the Betex bubble to the top and then skied down towards the Mt Joux lift but that had a bit of a queue (even after the point where we could have used Lucy's ESF magic to get ahead) so we went down to the Ideal chair instead.

We stopped for a rest (it's hard work!) and a beer at L'Igloo and then took a run down the top face of Les Pylones and then cut over to the left onto the slalom course. I was surprised that we were coming down something as steep at the top face of Pylones just 3 hrs after starting out on these strange skis, but it all seemed to work OK. The turns were feeling better and we were in control even if we weren't looking good.

We stopped for lunch at the base of Mont d'Arbois and then took another run down Les Pylones. Again the turns felt better and we noticed improvements. By the time we got to the bottom our legs were tired and we decided that we'd be better of stopping on a high note. The day had been another glorious March day which is good for the tan but not so good for the snow; though I expect we have a fair amount of time left before it's all gone ;) and we're due some new snow over the weekend (if the forecasts can be trusted).

The whole experience was less alien than either of us were expecting and the fact that you could push your heels down hard and ski almost normally was useful in sticky situations. You get a lot of strange looks when your heels are free, there aren't that many telemark skiiers here at the moment (though there were a few large groups last week). I'm sure I'll get even more strange looks when I feel I've earned my Lama herder hat and switch from my helmet to the hat that my sister left me...