Learning to Tele / and Tele Setup

[ScottP]

This has got to be one of the stupidest arguments that gets a regular rehashing on this board.

 

Apple vs oranges...

Betty vs Veronica...

Vaseline vs KY...

 

It's called a "personal preference".

 

Anyway...

mattp summed it up pretty good.

 

[cj001f]

Apple vs oranges...

Betty vs Veronica...

Vaseline vs KY...

 

It's called a "personal preference".

 

You forgot the most appropriate one:

Short Bus vs. Ferrari

 

 

Telemark skiing might be better if you a) meadow skip b)have problems with blood in your THC stream or c) if you sleep on a cock shaped pillow

 

otherwise, rando gear rules the roost

[Frikadeller]

 

If I were to say one thing good about tele it would be that it's better than snowboarding.

 

 

Whats with all this mad hate for snowboarders? I know, I know, the resort douche bag boarder is probably what comes to mind...

 

Not all of us are like that. Some of us enjoy the turns more than the steez, especially splitters...

[AlpineK]

Hey man snowboards look cool, and the little bit I've done was fun. The problem is they are totally innefficient for backcountry travel.

 

I've done trips with a bunch of tele folks and one boarder to Rodgers Pass. The boarder had snowshoes for uphill travel, and he was hating life on all the tours we did. He even took forever to get back to the hut on the low angle downhill back to the hut. Yes you can get a split board, but by all accounts they remain harder to use than any type of ski for travel. Feel free to prove me wrong, but I never see any boarders in the backcountry.

 

As for tele they do work, but I learned about bc skiing in the early 70s from old timers who used strictly AT skis. Tele was a crazy hippie thing when I first learned about it. I have skied with a ton of tele folks but I'm a 4th generation NW native, so I'll stick with what most of the locals used back in the day.

[mattp]

No doubt, the book that lagely fueled the Telemark revolution, Cross Country Downhill, featured skiers wearing Grateful Dead tee shirts. The telemark craze grew out of cross country skiing, with an emphasis on lightweight touring through the back country. Once skiers began taking telemark rigs on steep alpine terrain, whether on Rainier or a resort, they wanted heavier equipment so the emphasis on light weight is no longer there but this quote from Barnett's 1978 book, noted by Lowell Skoog on one of his history pages, is relevant:

 

"High-speed controllability is certainly the strength of Alpine skis. The limits, however, are both clear and strict--Alpine skiing is good for only gravity-powered travel. The main difference between the loose-heel and Alpine techniques is not power or grace, but primarily this high-speed capability. [...] Speed, of course, has never been an objective of the touring skier, in fact slow speed maneuverability, in which the Nordic techniques are very strong, is supremely important. But it is exciting to ski fast and unfettered, and if it can be done without sacrificing other desirable goals, why not do it? [...] Clearly, the limits of loose-heel, lightweight skiing have not yet been reached."

 

With the heavier gear, telemark equipment is nearly as stable as AT at higher speeds and I more often than not use parallel technique on steep terrain but when skiing through some kind of crud, maybe in the woods, I can slow it down and still execute turns without resorting to highly physical jump turns that the AT guys end up with.

 

Again, it comes down to this: if you are after the Triple Couloirs on Dragontail, AT is probably better (though it has been done on Tele). If you want to ski through the Enchantments via the standard Colchuck - Aasgard - Snow Lake - Snow Creek loop, telmark equipment is better (though Kurt's father probably did it on AT gear back in 1960).

 

[AlpineK]

My dad was on the first descent of the run that is now Exterminator at CM. They were inspecting the slopes prior to the resort being started. They were on AT gear. In fact they were on the old school 210 cm Head Standards back in those days.

 

I'm not suggesting going back to the rad old skis or even cable bindings, but I have a ton or respect for what the locals did back in the day.

[TeleRoss]

Tele is friggin rad, once you learn you will never go back.

Learning to tele friggin sucks...plan on spending a lot of time face down in the snow, and falling in all kinds of new and exciting ways.

Pick a week when the weather is bad, or go at night up to Snoqualmie and just make laps. Dont give up...eventually you'll get it.

For starter gear, go for a softer boot, maybe like the new T-2

and go for shorter skis than you might otherwise normally ski.

There's a ton of bindings out there these days. Do some research, because they all perform quite differently. Mostly, it comes down to how much adjustability you want in your system, and how "active" you want your binding to be.

There's lot's of great info out there so I won't bore everyone with it here.

Have fun!

[Tony_Bentley]

Looking at Lowell's Chronology, the sickest lines skied in the Cascade Mountains have been in the last five years. Looking at who made the first tracks, there is a pretty even split of Telemark and Randonee skiers on the list. I don't see any snowboarders.

[JackY]

 

Ideally you'd have a setup for every situation - certainly not my reality though. I currently have two tele setups, one for touring and one for turning. I used to ski enough to compensate for my lack of talent, but now that I have kids I can't wait to get my hands on an AT setup (of course having kids also makes acquiring gear more challenging)

[PeterC]

To add my two cents: I tele'd for about 5 yrs (mostly backcountry) and got a rando setup around last Xmas. I expected my new skis to be just another pair in the quiver, but haven't tele skied since. When the snow is perfect, tele looks and feels cooler for sure, but so often in the cascades you have to deal w/ concrete or crust and those are way easier to handle on AT. I was also getting exhausted by the end of the day and as soon as I switched to AT I could go way longer + harder.

 

Ironically, one of the main reasons I got the new skis was for releasable bindings, which almost killed me when they early-released at the top of the steepest part of the (icy) Cascadian couloir last winter.

 

That said, skiing WITH your wife instead of at the same time as your wife is totally where its at. Whatever you can do to handicap yourself down to her level is worth doing. In that context I think learning to tele is perfect for you.

 

 

 

[mattp]

In my own experience, crud and breakable crust and glop are often more easily handled with telemark turns than parallel - though the variety of conditions is endless and I do parallel and even snowplow turns in addition to jump turns on my telemark skis quite often. I agree that the telemark turn is generally more strenuous on the quads, though, and I'm not arguing with PeterC on this point to the extent of stating there is any definitive advantage to the telemark.

 

I'd be interested to know if there is a good, simple to use, reliable releaseable binding for telemark skiing that provides the traditional flex in the ball of the foot. To me, one of the greatest arguments for the AT bindings is that many of them are really easy to get into and out of while providing a highly adjustable release mechansim that works very well.

[snoboy]

If you are looking for something to kep you occupied during ski seesions with gorbies and n00bs, then tele might be ideal.

 

As for the tele vs AT debate... It's pretty rare that I am out on my tele gear these days...

[snoboy]

I'd be interested to know if there is a good, simple to use, reliable releaseable binding for telemark skiing that provides the traditional flex in the ball of the foot.

Nope, not yet.

[cj001f]

As for the tele vs AT debate... It's pretty rare that I am out on my tele gear these days...

 

yes, I did it for 6 years and now own no tele skis. I started because I was bored with resort skiing. I quit because it's a pain. I ended up with a bunch of bad habits I picked up while tele-ing that are a major pain to unlearn.

[Frikadeller]

Hey man snowboards look cool, and the little bit I've done was fun. The problem is they are totally innefficient for backcountry travel.

 

I've done trips with a bunch of tele folks and one boarder to Rodgers Pass. The boarder had snowshoes for uphill travel, and he was hating life on all the tours we did. He even took forever to get back to the hut on the low angle downhill back to the hut. Yes you can get a split board, but by all accounts they remain harder to use than any type of ski for travel. Feel free to prove me wrong, but I never see any boarders in the backcountry.

 

 

Well, that one boarder gave you the impression that all of us suck?

 

Split boarding is just as effecient as your AT set up when it's in tour mode. As a matter of fact, I can float better in tour mode because of the fatness of my "skis"...

 

But I am not going to try and prove you wrong, since I have never used an AT set up. mainly because I can't ski as well as I can board...

 

Kind of like, I play the Bass because my Guitar skills suck theory... But damn, I rock at Bass....

 

 

 

Maybe one day, if I hit the lottery, I will give AT a try...

 

Until then, it's splitsville for me.

 

[AlpineK]

I would say that my main impression comes from touring. I see plenty of folks heading up the trail with AT or Tele setup everywhere I go, but I never see any snowboard travel in the backcountry. There are plenty of boarders at lift served areas but not in the bc.

 

There are a lot of low angle spots on descents where you can move fast if you can kick and glide, but that's a simple procedure for somebody on AT. If you have to stop and take your board off then rerig it you end up sucking up time.

 

I may not be totally up on split boards. I understand using them uphill, but on a low angle descent they don't look beefy enough to stand up to a standard kick and glide descent.

[fheimerd]

it's not a question of tele, snowboard or AT. Do all mother fuckin three. In fresh pow in the backcountry tele is the way to go. If your skiing big lines and want to surf take out the board. If you want to go somewhere strap on the AT's. Each is good in certain areas but lacks in other. I like the variety. Tele skiing definately made me a better alpine skier and vice versa.

[jlag]

Well put Frank, I like your style.

 

Feck, your kinda clueless about splitters, they're on the rise. I push with a pole on the flats and then jump way ahead of you on the steeps.

[cj001f]

I push with a pole on the flats and then jump way ahead of you on the steeps.

 

And then spend 20 minutes reassembling the board to go downhill again Sure, they are reasonably efficient for yo-yoing (fat skis + skins are about equal), but for any non simple terrain they suck, and so do the fiddly parts get lost/broken mechanisms.

[dmarch]

I push with a pole on the flats and then jump way ahead of you on the steeps.

 

And then spend 20 minutes reassembling the board to go downhill again Sure, they are reasonably efficient for yo-yoing (fat skis + skins are about equal), but for any non simple terrain they suck, and so do the fiddly parts get lost/broken mechanisms.

 

Having splitboarded in the backcountry a bit, I'd have to agree, esp. in regards to yo-yoing. I got tired of:

Them:

Rip skins - go.

Me:

Rip skins - wait up, I gotta put my board together

 

 

 

 

[AlpineK]

I push with a pole on the flats and then jump way ahead of you on the steeps.

 

And then spend 20 minutes reassembling the board to go downhill again Sure, they are reasonably efficient for yo-yoing (fat skis + skins are about equal), but for any non simple terrain they suck, and so do the fiddly parts get lost/broken mechanisms.

 

Exactly.

 

jlag I will have been on skis for 42 years come December. I've never split boarded, but I've been watching them for as long as they've been around. The one key thing I've noted is their amazing lack of presence in the backcountry. The only way that will change is when I see splitboarders at all the popular bc ski spots or you and your buddies post a lot of trip reports.

[jlag]

I agree, the old Burton interfaces took a long time to switch out. i'm sure that's what your basing your opinions on, understood. With a new Voile i've can usually go from skins to riding in under 5 minutes, no exaggeration.

 

Look up any TR with GaperTimmy, i'm usually with him.

 

thanks for not ripping me too hard.

 

JL

[Frikadeller]

Well put Frank, I like your style.

 

Feck, your kinda clueless about splitters, they're on the rise. I push with a pole on the flats and then jump way ahead of you on the steeps.

 

Exactly!!

 

I even push with my poles in board mode if needed. No reassembly or disassembly required.

 

 

[Frikadeller]

I agree, the old Burton interfaces took a long time to switch out. i'm sure that's what your basing your opinions on, understood. With a new Voile i've can usually go from skins to riding in under 5 minutes, no exaggeration.

 

Look up any TR with GaperTimmy, i'm usually with him.

 

thanks for not ripping me too hard.

 

JL

 

What! put on the brakes here. Screech...

 

 

Hmm... I still ride the old Burton interface, and I have to disagree with you here. All I have to do is unsnap the binding, split, hook and go. I can even slap a crampon in while still attached to the "ski/binding" try that with a Voile set up. Every one of my splitter fiends have voile but me, and I am constantly waiting for them to put their shit back together.

 

I would like to see less than 5 min with voile, especially in powder. (not that burton is great in powder either, but thats why I carry a small paintbrush!!)

 

With voile, loose one pin, and you're screwed. No pins in my Burton....

 

 

Yeah, I know, there must be a reason why they discontinued the Burton...

 

I guess I just like my set up, and am used to it.

[jlag]

I still have a Burton, it's still a good board. Not sure how many days you have on yours but after a while the side pins(yes you do have pins on your board) start to loosen up while in skin mode. Check out splitboard.com, it's a universal issue in the Burton interface. Mine still works, but it's got a ton of play in it.

 

my pins are girth hitched via cable to my binding, impossible to lose.

 

I don't need a paintbrush, the binding set up removes snow/ice when you slide it in automatically. The new Voile's are super quick to set up, yes it's only 5 minutes in powder.

 

They discontinued Burton's interface due to copyright infringements on Voile's design. And the fact(documented by tons of users) that Burton interfaces break down after time.

 

Don't get me wrong, i love my Burton 165, but it's seen better days.

 

JL