I have never tried to tele ski or XC ski but really want to give it a try this winter. Before i do i have a few dangling questions and i guess this s probably the best place to ask them:

1) Anywhere besides whitegrass offer lessons in tele skiing for beginners?
2) Could i teach myself?
3) How tele skiing affects your alpine skiing technique?

I am really excited to give it a try seeing that downhill skiing out on this coast gets a little boring after 20 days per year and it would be exciting to try something new. Also, i am always seeing videos of you all at whitegrass completely free of trails and skiing in some amazing powder and would love the sills to access some of that terrain. Also, i think XC skiing would be a great workout for downhill skiing.

For balance, yes. For major leg muscles, not really. Very different muscle use patterns.

I glad you asked this because I am wanting to give it a shot too and have many of the same questions.... Let's get some answers!!!

i had that same thought last year but did not since i really just don't get enough days period. i did get in some more xc which i think you should do first because 1- its too cool, and 2- trying to make downhill turns through the woods on edgeless toothpicks will give you a new appreciation for the prospects of tele gear. Ouch besides tele is just so trendy now.

Humm thats good to know... at least it would be good cardio!

I am glad there is so much interest in this, all of you experienced tele skiers pass on some knowledge us youngins!

enter stage left.... Denis!
or maybe we can all take a "dcski" group lesson at WG sometime also

Try it? Absolutely!


Tele and XCare two different animals. I'd suspect you could learn to skate around the snow farm at Whitegrass yourself. Might be better to learn the telemark turn while riding the lifts. I'd definitly take a lesson or three, maybe take the tele clinic at Timberline and then a lesson at Whitegrass.

I spent ten days last season telemarking and for me anyways it is as hard as it looks, but still fun and a new challenge. Good to be a beginner again.






Hard for me to say because as most here who've skied w/me know, i have no technique. I do think it will improve your balance and make you think more about line selection.

One other thing to consider, the boots are so much more comfortable apres-ski .

Thought this was funny....

I searched the library here on campus and found several movies that were ski related:

Warren Miller's "Power of Snow" Compilation DvDs
"Revenge of the Telemarkers" VHS
"Telemark Movie" VHS
"Telemark Workshop" VHS
"Freetime: Techniques for Modern Freehill Skiing" VHS


I thought it was funny to find so many tele movies. Not too many people from this area of WV even go skiing and of the people that do I bet only about 10% could even tell you what telemark skiing even is..

Well, no one has taken a stab at this yet, so here's a temporary stopgap.



There are quite a few PSIA Nordic instructors at other resorts; offering lessons for beginners however tends to presume gear availability and I don't know any local resorts where you could rent "beginnner" gear. There are demo shops, but that isn't what you seek. There have been a few threads on Telepalooza here, that could be a good place to start (and, really, a community to join).



To XC, DEFINITELY. It's really just an elegant shuffling, at least until you get into the fine points of skating.

I've posted this link before, warning, I have no idea how long it will stay current:
http://www.patc.us/chapters/ski/
There is a ski fair Nov. 3 where folks sign up for trips:
http://www.patc.us/chapters/ski/news.htm


To telemark, hmmm, possibly but not advisable. It takes an instructor whom you trust to cut down the sweaty work of the learning curve, to show that maybe the reason it isn't working is maybe you're just not going fast enough, and to avoid bad t habits forming from the good alpine ones.



Don't worry about it. The reverse is far more likely.

Thanks for the advise!



humm... maybe a good place to buy some used/cheap XC gear and get some advise

The trick to cheap XC gear is to find a boot that fits* then figure out which bindings work with that boot.

For example, I have an extremely high volume but short foot that, fortunately, fits an Alpina last -exactly-. So I use Rottefella NNN, NNN-BC or 75mm bindings and no Salomon ones.

*kinda tricky. No one basket will have all egg brands. Chip does well, better than most.

Sorry to be late checking in. I just got back from a week long business meeting in San Diego and didn't check the forum while there. As stated there are good tele instuctors at other places than Canaan Valley, Jim Kapp at 7 Springs for example. He organizes a tele festival each year. However given 3 good places in close proximity I recommend the Canaan Valley. Chip has a huge rental fleet and he charges less than the lift served areas. You can rent from Chip and then ski at TL or CV. I'd recommend that at first so you can work on skiing. It is hard to make many turns in a day when you have to climb for them. I'd also ski parallel for the first day or two on teles and don't even try a tele turn. It will pay off in the long run to find your centering and balance on free heels on green & blue slopes and be sure that you can execute your alpine techniques reliably. Then come to WG and Chip or one of his other excellent instructors or maybe me can mentor you from there. TL and CV also offer tele lessons. TL in particular has a sizeable group of excellent telers in their ski school.

Tele will strengthen your alpine technique and alpine, or free heel parallel will strengthen your tele. I have tended to parallel more on free heels in recent years. My stamina is declining with age and the parallel is less demanding of stamina. Parallel is the better turn on hardpack but tele feels so good in powder. I save my legs for that by paralleling on the groomed. XC is fun as well, but it is really more like a hike than it is like downhill skiing. I like hikes. Diagonal stride XC will probably not help your alpine technique much, some for balance but not much. OTOH XC skating is a fantastic workout, very demanding and will significantly help alpine. I'd like to get more into skating but I always want to make turns and I have limited time. Got to retire.

BTW the secret of staying centered and balanced on free heels is to bend at the ankles and knees, more or less equally. Think of those 2 joints as forming a Z shaped suspension spring. The ankles are the forgotten joint in skiing. A straight stiff leg is to be avoided at all cost and usually results in a hard fall when you are on free heel bindings

I second all that Denis said, plus a couple of my own cents.

1- The "Joy of Telemarking" DVD is new, and excellent for learning.

2 - Whitetail is a good closer option to get good lessons. There's a growing group of us freeheelers always there. Many patrollers and instructors are on them now.

And I'll reinforce Denis' point about going lift-served as much as you can while learning. You really don't get a lot of turning practice in at WG when you have to climb it.

- no -

but I'm LAZY so I don't count. Too much quad usage needed. And too much shuffling around going uphill also too much work. And the boots are squishy and the bindings are so light when you hit other people it's like smashing a Smart Car into a Chevy Avalanche. No , no good a waste of time.

For those of you who begin to buy ^that^, you should know that the first time I met Crush he was on Dynastar 8000s or 8800s (I forget which) with AT bindings on, stuffing an avalanche transceiver into his pants.

C- that's the biggest pile of steaming poo-poo i've every denied. so untrue that so wrong wrong wrong i have no room in my pants due to my big equipment. so see that could never happen, right like that was blahh blahhblahh and so much hooey etc. et Al. and so forth with 120 dB of white noise plus multiple CDMA collisions, parity check violations, failure of CRC32 checksums, MD5 mismatches, RAID5 errors, and gosh darn it I was in Tulsa, OK at the time too .

And it not true either.