BTW, cross-country gear permits telemark turns as well as the christie turns made by alpine skiers. e.g. 1:28 in this vid Backcountry XC Skiing, Vol II - YouTube
Telemark is the jack of all trades but master of none. Telemark boots are a compromise between light cross-country and heavy alpine boots. The toes are clamped into the bindings but the heels are not attached. This makes it possible to tour/hike about the backcountry with relative ease compared to alpine randonnée bindings, but still ski down hills rather than flop down them. The narrower the ski, the easier it is to cover kilometers. The wider the ski, the easier it is to ski down hills. A telemark touring ski is a compromise between the two. Telemark gear permits telemark turns, christie (alpine) turns, cross country skate (with significant effort) and cross-country classic (with some effort).
Going to a small local area tonight (in the bitter cold) to do a Train the Trainer session for our Telemark workshop on Sunday (in the bitter cold). But at least the snow around here is quite good.
Longer term, spending a week in Banff and Kicking Horse in February. Never skied in the Canadian Rockies, really looking forward to it.
BTW, Telemark is a wide range of gear. My tele boots are no lighter or less stiff than alpine boots, my tele skis are just alpine skis with a different topsheet. The NTN (New Telemark Norm) system further brings tele into a more AT-like (Alpine Touring) world, with step-in releasable bindings, much better control, and higher prices.
The gear that **Muffin **described is what I’d call 3-pin backcountry touring gear. I have a few setups that fall into that category. I use them for rolling terrain where I don’t want to skin up, and to have fun on the descents it’s best to have soft snow. They get pushed around a lot on firm snow.
The line between tele and AT/Randonee bindings is getting blurred more and more each year, but several Franken-bindings out there that use Dynafit tech mounts and NTN. All major bindings have free touring mode for essentially equal climbing with skins. NTN is less easy to kick and glide with compared to 75mm tele, but both are still better than AT. But since folks rarely kick and glide with this gear the point is mostly moot.
There are several new wide, light tele skis with fish scales that are great for “meadow skipping” - long runs through gentle terrain in light snow. If you can find a mellow skin track for the uphill you can use them for steeper terrain without needing to put on skins.
Heading to Deer Valley end of March. 2 of my kids and their SOs will be meeting us there. Love Utah skiing - have never been to Deer Valley. Can’t wait!
My son from Denver was in over x-mas - said the snow there has been lousy so far. Resorts only 15% open or so.
The resorts at Tahoe are suffering. Last season was a banner season, but it looks like old man drought may be making a return. Tahoe area resorts are reporting 12"-18" bases, and I think that is being generous. Today it’s 40F and drizzly up there. Not good for making or preserving snow. I think I will sit-out this weekend and hope some colder air and moisture comes thru next week.
Did a very nice day at Heavenly Nevada side 3 weeks ago even with most runs still closed, and since it was colder, the little snow there was still in good shape. But, since then, no precip, and warmer temps. :mad:
You all on the East coast and Midwest, feel free to share some of that cold air and snow out here - it looks like more than you can handle, and it’s bleak out here for snow lovers.
Just wanted to say that we here in the Great State of the Pacific Northwest have plenty o’ snow. My local hill is 100% open with reported coverage of 33" at the bottom and 62" at the top.
The temperature got above freezing today for the first time in 2 weeks here at my house.
I used to go to Banff nearly every year. I was looking for powder and steeps at that time. I’m not sure what you like so…
I look primarily for vertical when evaluating a ski area. Anything over 3000 feet is going to be large and worth at least a week. Banff has 2 areas that meet this criteria.
Lake Louis, vast, big place. A bit of a drive from Banff. And that is a drive in BC in the winter, so can be a trek. The only knock I have against Lake Louis is I ran into fog a couple of times there. Could have been an aberration.
Sunshine Village, dumb name, great place. This place has some seriously long, steep terrain. I think I recall that it got a little more snow than Louis. If you are hardcore, you will be happy here.
Norquay, MUCH smaller than the other two. I have never been there.
Banff is a fun town that can be spendy if you want it to be. A good place for a non-skiing family member. Right in the middle of some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Don’t approach the elk.
I have never been to Kicking Horse. I am surrounded by an embarrassment of riches.
From my bedroom, I can actually see the night skiing lights of an area I have never been to. It is the smallest of my 5 localish places.
OK, I’ll come clean. I didn’t want to let anyone feel that their particlar choice of ski discipline wasn’t the shiznits, so I held back in using a key word.
Telemark is the jack of all trades but master of [del]none[/del] fun.
Let’s put it this way. Take whatever ski you can imagine – GS, freestyle, x-country, waterski . . . and then mount a telemark binding on it. The result? An exponential increase fun. As the saying goes, “free your heel, free your mind.” You’re no longer plodding along with your heel bound to the ground. Instead of just skiing, you’re dancing on skies, throwing down on each turn with full committment in a powerful, graceful waltz – down-down-up, down-down-up – bending the boards like Beckham. Being able to ski all terrain in all conditions is the mark of an expert skier. With telemarking, the game is stepped up a notch to being able to dance on skis through all terrain and all conditions. Now that’s fun! And if you master telemark skiing, you too will be a master of fun!
I have been skiing for the last 40 years and I picked-up snowboarding as an adult about 12 years ago: I am advanced at both. I always wanted to add Telemark and become a triple-threat - and your description makes me wanna!
Steep and deep, no cliffs, trees are better than open bowls.
We have friends who live in Banff, and we’re staying at their house and skiing with them for the first 2 days. I suspect we’ll be at Lake Louis since I’m pretty sure that’s where they’re going to want to show us around.
We’ll probably ski 3 days at Kicking Horse, but there’s a possibility that we’ll head one day to Revelstoke just for the heck of it. It’s a bit of driving but as long as the weather is OK we may just give it a shot.
We end up back in our friends’ house in Banff for one more day before heading home. We might be too tired to ski that last day, or we can try one of the other two area for variety.
Well, tomorrow starts my skiing season. For the longest time there was no snow, and then it was too blasted cold to throw myself down a hill. I have a mild start planned at a local hill, then heading up to the north shore for a couple days early next week. Puppers is excited to visit her doggy country club while I’m gone, I can tell.
One thing that happened on our trip rammed home the benefits of wearing a helmet. We’d just shuffled though the gate to a chair lift when saw a teenage girl come down a steep red at a fast pace, in control at that point but she clearly wanted to carry that speed right to the turnstile and do a stop at the last minute. Not a good idea and the reason why there are “langsalm” signs all over the place. Anyhow she caught an edge about ten feet from the turnstile and slammed head-first into the substantial metal structure.
It was a horrible dull clang and it was clear that she was out like a light. We had to keep moving forward and had to get on the chair but thankfully we could still look back and see a minute or so later that she was helped to her feet and we didn’t see any medical evacuation. Hopefully no lasting damage.
So there we go, I dread to think what would have happened had she not been wearing her helmet.
N.B., Perhaps she confused slow down with long-slalom.
Chisquirrel, you’ll have no worries about snow. One of the guys who was there last weekend said they had made a phenominal amount of snow, and that conditions of the open runs were excellent.
I was in PC on thanksgiving which was a skiing disaster , although thanksgiving skiing is always a bit of a risk. We were also there 18-25 Dec and it was not great , minimal terrain open.
They have had some decent snow since and opreni ng more, plus more storms coming though so it can all change.
Take a look at Wasatch snow forecast . Evan Thayer is a pretty good local snow forecaster . The Bouy is also a fun resource
It will all be good, and if not a few enhanced deer valley hot chocolates make things better.
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They look at the wave response of a marine weather Bouy somewhere in the Pacific for long range powder predictions.
They also don t take themselves too seriously.
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Had an excessively firm but edgible day at Sunapee on Sunday, quit by 2:00 because everything had been skied off and the bodies were starting to pile up. Some new snow and warmer temps in the forecast this week, hopefully this weekend will be better.
