Like most people my first “backcountry” skiing experiences involved boot packing in the “side country” adjacent to major ski resorts. As time passed I wanted more and at the time (1996?) the best way to explore the backcountry was on telemark gear. Or at least that was the equipment everybody I knew was using. I started telmark skiing at Brighton ski resort while I was working as an instructor there. I was very fortunate to have some excellent telemark instructors as friends and mentors. It wasn’t long before I fell in love with the telemark turn and I too was lining up to teach the popular telemark workshops each weekend at Brighton.
It was a great time to be teaching telemark, the sport was growing leaps and bounds with stronger bindings, plastic boots and shaped skis a lot of really strong alpine skiers were looking for the challenge and grace of the telemark turn. I don’t really want to boast too much but I got pretty damn good at telemarking, to the point that I could ski just about anything on my tele gear that I could on my alpine gear.
In 2001 my wife and I moved to Teton Valley, ID and I gave up alpine skiing completely, pretty much gave up resorts too. I met new friends in the Tetons some who were on Tele’s and a few who were on A.T. (Alpine Touring) also known at Randonee gear. I had a sticker that said “Randonee…French for can’t Tele” that pretty much summed up what I thought about A.T. gear at the time. I thought it was for people who wanted to backcountry ski but who never learned how to telemark…losers..hahaha.
An amazing thing happened over the years. In summary A.T. got cool, but seriously A.T. equipment got lighter, more efficient. You have features on modern A.T. gear that simply isn’t available for telemark skiers, how about releasability, step in bindings, frictionless touring, ski breaks? Sure there has been some great advances in the free pivot tele bindings and there is the ‘holy grail’ NTN tele biding that nobody uses. But the more I skied with people on A.T. equipment the more I realized how much better A.T. gear is for efficient backcountry travel both for skinning and skiing.
Well the winter of 2010/2011 is the year for me and A.T. I finally upgraded my equipment with a new pair of Black Diamond boots, skis, skins, and a pair of Dynafit bindings. I got out for my first turns on the new gear this morning, two quick runs on Teton Pass before work. How did it feel? Kind of like cheating, do recall that I said I fell in love with the telemark turn. The A.T. gear felt almost too easy, with my heel locked securely on the downhill I was a hero and the frictionless low weight Dynafit binding makes the uphill pass like butter. With the upgrade in equipment I have lost a couple pounds of weight and gained much more control and efficiency.
With a couple of quick runs a lot remains to be seen. I may have gained a lot of efficiency and control but definitely gave up some style and grace of the Telemark turn. More turns will have to be made.
Stay tuned.
In the meantime here is an absolutely hilarious video about the great backcountry debate…Tele or AT?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4729727588189988961#
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