Learning to telemark ski

Recently I landed an amazing deal on a pair of Telemark Skis which are kind of like really fancy cross-country skis or broken alpine skis. Ed has been pushing me to learn, and even if he hadn't the offer was to good a deal to refuse, so now I own some more equipment for a new sport that will likely cause me to buy more stuff!

I gather that most people learn to tele-ski with some basic knowledge of skiing in general, but I haven't had the chance to barrel down the mtn. on anything but a sled in the past 3 years and I haven't been on a pair of skis since my sister taught me when I was in elementary school. The only advice that I can remember, and I have my sister to thank for it, is "Stop for Pizza" and "Go for French Fries". Basically this means that you make the skis parallel to go fast and if you want to stop you cross your skis in the shape of a pizza slice so that you then trip over yourself and slide on your back until you come to a stop. Tele-skis add to the already challenging sport by allowing you to release your heal so that when you want to turn you have to put one knee to the ground, while keeping your back straight and chest up, pushing your downhill ski in front-of your trailing uphill ski, and usually someone is yelling at you to tell you that you're not doing any of those things even remotely close, at which point you try to correct any one of your mistakes by shifting your weight which causes you to loose balance fall on your butt and slide on your back until you're lucky enough to come to a stop.

Once you start to feel a little comfortable with the turning though, you start to challenge muscles instead of the padding on your butt. Since you have to turn in order to not hit children, trees, or speeds above 10 mph, you may have to practice a turn, in both directions, pretty often on the way down the mountain. The problem arises though when you realize that your legs aren't actually made of steel like you previously thought. After only two turns where you fully lunge with one leg forward and hold it as your skis slowly move you in the direction you intend to go, you will find that your legs are in fact made of jello. There is no muscle there at all! Unfortunately after the second turn you are in desperate need of any muscle fibers in your leg and so if you're lucky you can slow to a stop and rest for 2 hours until your legs stop burning, or you can kind of cling to the poles, tense up, bend you back incorrectly, and fall on your butt until you come to a stop or loose your skis.

In a day of skiing you can repeat this procedure pretty much about three times before you can barely stand and you think that the black diamond routes seem like a good idea if only so that you can slide uncontrollably on your butt to the bottom that much faster. Luckily in the times that you are trying to regain feeling in your legs or collecting your skis after tossing them across the hill, your friends can usually get 13 or 14 runs in before you start moving again. This way everyone is having fun on the mountain together!