Telemark skiing requires rhythm.

PositionSPORTS

Byline: Shaun SUTNER

COLUMN: SNOW SPORTS

`Toes, knees, nose."

With those words, Luke Foley tried to mold my Alpine-trained body into a strange, but for me, beguiling new form.

I was supposed to align my head, feet and legs in a balanced assemblage that would allow my skis to grip the hill and take me down gracefully.

I had put it off all winter, but finally I was taking my first telemark lesson with the veteran Eastern Mountain Sports outdoor guru, a Worcester native who telemarks, snowboards, kayaks, ice-climbs, surfs and kite-boards for a living year-round, teaching others how to do it.

We were at Ski Ward in Shrewsbury on a sub-zero night last week just before the cold snap ended.

Foley, 41, of Mansfield (who says, quite rightly, that he has "the best job in the world") and other professional EMS telemark instructors had run popular free clinics every Wednesday night at Ward. Now it was my turn.

It was actually a good time to learn. The slopes were empty and all the new quad-flexing movements I was trying out kept me plenty warm despite the frostbite-inducing temps.

For the uninitiated, telemark is a traditional form of skiing that was invented in the Telemark region of Norway in the 1860s.

Unlike regular Alpine, telemark skiers use "free-heel" bindings in which only the toes are attached to the skis, as in cross-country. Turns are made on bent knee, with one ski out ahead of the other, with the two skis becoming a sort of single, long arc.

In the 1990s, the explosion of shaped skis and high-tech plastic telemark boots triggered a telemark revival, making the sport hip and accessible. It is now one of the fastest-growing snow sports, as evidenced by the success that Foley and his EMS crew have found this winter in finding converts.

As for me, learning how to telemark has been a heck of a lot of fun. After about 90 minutes with Foley, I was turning in both directions on Ward's moderately pitched main slope.

While the turns weren't too glamorous, I fell only once. I think it's true what a lot of new telemarkers say - that the sport creates all sorts of new dimensions for the Alpine skier. Some telemarkers describe their sport in almost mystical terms, talking about the feel and rhythm of the free-heeling sensation and how it opens up the hill.

"It's all about the style," Foley said. "Style, feel and flow."

Indeed, when I next tried it on Tuesday night at Wachusett, the mountain's intermediate-rated Conifer Connection slope looked like...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT