Randonee (AT) vs Telemarking?

[Jkrew81]

thank you for all of the information guys. I guess I am still learning what I want to be able to do on ski's b/c the kind of winter traveling that I do would be beyond my skiing abilities (ie backcountry bushwacking/mountaineering).

Pretty much I stick to the Pemi for most of my winter travel so from the looks of things the backcountry ski's make the most sense. Thanks for your help guys.

 

[dave.m]

Couple of loose thoughts...

1) It is important, as much as possible, to compare apples to apples. In general, AT gear should be compared only the heaviest of tele gear. I'm thinking here of boots like the Scarpa T2 and up and cable and plate bindings and wide skis. I call that stuff heavy tele gear. In contrast, light nordic backcountry gear falls in between xc gear and heavy tele/AT gear. So IMO, these are the 3 major buckets you have to choose from.
+ Light xc gear (best for skiing in nordic tracks)
+ Heavy Tele & AT (good for rough and rugged downhills)
+ Nordic Backcountry (in between the 2 extremes)

2) If you are a really good alpine skier and you take joy in really working a ski, you may find heavy tele to be a fundementally broken approach. You *can* make good p-turns on heavy tele gear, this is very true. But you can't utterly dominate a run on tele gear the way you can with a locked heel. Just mho, anybody who tells you you can rip just as well on tele gear probably hasn't plumbed the depths of what you can do on alpine gear with a fixed heel. If you are a hard charger, AT may be your ticket.

3) I've really mellowed out over the years and really prefer low angled powder turns over high speed skiing. Wisdom or wimp? Regardless, nordic backcountry is much much better for this type of skiing in New England imo. If you are just thinking about matching the gear to the type of skiing you will be doing, you might start here:
http://home.comcast.net/~pinnah/DirtbagPinner/quick-picks.html

4) For somebody looking to make lazy turns in the puckerbush, a good starting point would be Fischer Rebounds, Voile Mountaineer Pins, Garmont Excursions. Lots of great variations off of this basic theme.

5) Regarding the learning curve, I think it depends on whether you are talking about heavy tele or nordic backcountry gear. For the former, rent heavy tele gear and take a few lessons at a ski area. The bigger the boots and the wider the skis, the easier the transition will be, provided you are a decent alpine skier to begin with. If you are not an alpine skier but want to learn heavy tele, I can't in good conscience suggest learning on tele gear. Prolly better to learn alpine first then move to tele.

For nordic backcountry and if you are an alpine skier, my suggestion is to rent xc gear and take lessons at a nordic center learning kick and glide. Nordic backcountry is as much or more about forward motion and striding as it is about turning. Really the only turns you *need* are the snowplow and step turn when in the woods.

Hope this helps,

 

[Halite]

...I'll add something about why touring begs for tele. The tele boot/binding system forces your foot to pivot on the ball of your foot while AT bindings have a pivot out in front of your toe. The latter is way less comfortable and efficient in my opinion....spencer

The Naxos bindings http://www.bcaccess.com/bca_products/naxo.php addresses the issue of pivot point in an AT binding. Combine this with no resistance from a spring (as in a tele binding) and the AT binding setup is more efficient for touring.

For the downhill portion of your tour, the AT binding will provide a more secure connection to the ski and snow. Having your heel locked down makes for quicker, more solid turns than even the stiffest spring-loaded free-heel turn.

The AT learning curve will definitely be much lower than the tele learning curve for you coming from an alpine skiing background.

So a lot of arguments for AT over Tele. And yet I tele ski almost exclusively and would encourage you to give it a try as well. Why? because it is a really fun way to gliss on snow! Also, on more rolling terrain, it is marginally easier to wax up a tele ski and do the old cross-country kick and glide than to lock and unlock the heel and remove and apply climbing skins.

I've watched a number of really good downhill skiers pick up tele turns really quickly. Once you know how to slide downhill on snow, the principles of tele turns are very similar to those for various parallel turns. So you could definitely pick up tele skiing quickly if you chose to.

So as others have suggested, maybe give tele a try in a clinic or lesson. If you really love the turn, pursue tele gear. On the other hand, if you decide to go AT, you really aren't giving up anything in terms of performance. End of the day, if you're sliding on snow in the backcountry, it's a good day

 

[DougPaul]

thank you for all of the information guys. I guess I am still learning what I want to be able to do on ski's b/c the kind of winter traveling that I do would be beyond my skiing abilities (ie backcountry bushwacking/mountaineering).

I certainly factor my skills into what I choose to ski, so my menu has expanded as my skill set has expanded.

Pretty much I stick to the Pemi for most of my winter travel so from the looks of things the backcountry ski's make the most sense. Thanks for your help guys.

The Pemi region has lots of easy-to-ski trails. And some more interesting ones...

You may find the David Goodman's BC ski guidebooks a worthwhile investment. The WMNF also maintains some trails: http://www.fs.fed.us/r9/forests/white_mountain/recreation/skiing.

Doug

 

[DougPaul]

I just stumbled over the rec.skiing.backcountry FAQ. A little dated and western US oriented, but there is some useful info on BC, tele, and AT skiing:
http://www.math.utah.edu/~eyre/rsbfaq

It also includes a reference to some info on a simple mathematical model of avalanches. The first part is worth looking at even if you don't care about the math part.
http://www.math.utah.edu/~eyre/lectures/snow/

Doug

 

[cbcbd]

Try to hit a demo day and try some things out, there is a list of demo days here:
http://forums.alpinezone.com/viewtopic.php?t=5198&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

There is a Tele one coming up on the 19th at Killington.

 

[sardog1]

Another log for the fire:

I just purchased a pair of HammerHead bindings, reviewed here on Telemarktips.com. Given the over-the-top tenor of that review and others, I'm exceedingly eager to get them mounted once they arrive.

Meanwhile, I wonder whether anyone has any experience with them or knows of another user? If so, what boot(s) were used and what were the results?

Field report to follow.

 

[DougPaul]

I just purchased a pair of HammerHead bindings

I haven't used HammerHeads, but I do have their predecessor: Superloops. I've been happy with the Superloops and it sounds like the HammerHeads are even better.

Doug

 

[David Metsky]

The Hammerheads ski nothing like the Superloops. They are a great, active binding with bombproof support and lots of adjustability. If you like an active binding,and ski big, you'll love the Hammerheads.

-dave-

 

[Nadine]

FWIW, I started out with randonee gear and then switched to tele. Tele boots are so much more comfortable, especially on long tours/approaches. I still have my randonee set up, but haven't used it the last 3 seasons. The only time I've wished for my heel to be locked down has been on really steep terrain. Last March I skied the steepest terrain I've ever skied in my life on tele skis, so maybe my telemark self confidence will improve this winter as my skills continue to improve.

 

[el-bagr]

I often ski on Hammerheads (including yesterday). I like them for many reasons, but similarity to the Superloop (in which I often tour too) is not one of them. To me, the biggest similarities are (1) Russ Rainey designed both; (2) both have springs in front of the toe; and (3) both have adjustable cable guide positions (though the S'loops are hard to adjust in the field). Other than that, there are huge differences.

My advice for getting into backcountry skiing is to avoid the Hammerhead. If you said you'd be burning vert under the lifts or engaging in steep backcountry descents, I'd say to go for it -- but that doesn't sound like your objective.

Stick with something simple -- S'loops work well if you can find them, but a 3pin+cable or 3pin+hardwire will work even better.

 

[Sugarloafer]

Lots of good info on this thread. I think telemark skiing is definetely a longer leraning curve, even if you're a good alpine skier there's a lot of technique involved. In my opinion telemark skiing has evolved into a "resort" technique, while AT has allowed alpine skiers an efficient way to explore the backcountry. If you're impatient to explore the backcountry, AT will probably be the way to go; if not, you'll need to commit the time to learning the tele turn. If you spend enough time on telemarktips.com, you'll learn that both of these techniques have followers that are almost cult-like, which I don't really get...to me its all about having fun so who cares what type of gear you use. Anyways, here's a link that discusses your exact question :http://www.telemarktips.com/AlpTouring1.html

 

[dave.m]

In my opinion telemark skiing has evolved into a "resort" technique, while AT has allowed alpine skiers an efficient way to explore the backcountry. If you're impatient to explore the backcountry, AT will probably be the way to go; if not, you'll need to commit the time to learning the tele turn.

At the risk of repeating things, I think it really, really depends by what the OP meant by "backcountry" and what you mean by "telemark".

I agree that heavy tele has become resort oriented. In fact, I predict that it is a fad that will slide into obscurity in much the same way that ballet skiing has. IMO, the only reason to use heavy tele is for style -- the telemark turn.

But I rather think this has little or nothing to do with the OP's request. In a subsequant post, Jkrew81 noted that most of his winter backcountry travel was done in the Pemi. In the Pemi, nordic backcountry gear has it all over AT gear by leaps and bounds. No question.

Here's a true story from last year. Despite the lousy snow in December of last year, a buddy and I went out on the East Side Road next to the East Branch of the Pemi. We were on skinny traditional nordic backcountry skis and low cut leather boots. He was on E99s and I was ancient Kazama Mountain Highs, both with tip widths in the low 60mm range. We were using kick wax and were able to make really good time on the rolling FS road/trail.

On our way back in the afternoon we met a party of college age guys skiing in with full packs, obviously coming in for an overnight. They were skinning down, yes down, a slight hill on full combat AT gear. The gear was all the same. Brand new Atomic AT skis, new AT bindings and boots and skins. Looked to be a college outing club out on a shake down cruise. We asked where they were headed and they were unsure. They said their plan was to ski in and look for turns.

Now, maybe Hitchcock had become a destination spot for turns when I wasn't looking? More likely was that these guys had read too many articles in Couloir and concluded that backcountry skiing equated to burly gear. Little did they know that they were skiing into miles of some of the best rolling ski touring terrain armed with gear that would punish them with every step. They had no idea what kick wax was and as a result, they could only make forward progress with skins on. Since the road went from slightly up to slightly down every 20 yards or so, it became clear why these guys were plodding *DOWN* a hill with their skins on. Oy!

If Jkrew81 is going to be skiing in the Pemi as he's suggested, AT gear would not be on my recommendation list.

 

[David Metsky]

For much of New England, AT gear doesn't make much sense. However, I've recently gone up Moosilake and other peaks with folks on AT gear and they climbed just fine. Better than me, but I think a lot of that had to do with them being in great shape. The gear was appropriate for more mellow terrain than I'd imagined, though for rolling hills I'm still not sure why anyone would want AT.

I don't think lift tele is going to go away anytime soon, it's just too much fun. If you go on tele gear in the backcountry I think that it makes sense to stick to it on the lifts as well, and the beefier gear the better.

I'm not sure about the learning curve being longer. If you take two people who've never skied before I suspect they'd take about the same time to become an intermediate skier in either discipline. I suspect that they'd be even quicker to come up to speed on a snowboard, but where's the fun in that.

As Dave.M said, "exploring the backcountry" can mean just about anything. Some uses of that term are completely inappropriate for AT, other uses make sense. Based on the OP, I agree with Dave.M again that touring or backcountry gear makes the most sense so far.

-dave-

 

[Sugarloafer]

Good points, Dave and I agree with you. I missed the post relative to his skiing in the Pemi and your post makes complete sense to me now.

BTW, I checked out your website......lots of good common sense info. Nice job !

 

[el-bagr]

I suspect there are more opinions about these subjects than there are skiers -- and I don't mean to imply that Dave, Dave &c don't ski -- those guys get out all the time. Rather, I'm suggesting that I am one skier and yet I have at least two divergent opinions on the subject. Confused yet?

I am a practitioner of "heavy tele". In season, I regularly hitch rides on chairlifts and find the most interesting ways to use 24 lbs of ski gear to get me back to the bottom (or at least within walking distance of the bottom). Depending on my mood, I try to go fast, take tight lines through trees, enjoy ungroomed snow, or work on freeheeling 360s in the terrain park. I also often take this setup into the backcountry -- primarily when turning is the priority, but touring is what it takes to get there. (I also take this when conditions are sketchy -- see "skiing as stunt". See also "yesterday on Boott Spur".)

I am also a practitioner of lightweight backcountry skiing. When there's snow, I can often be found skiing deep into the woods on lightweight backcountry gear -- these days I have metal edges, but this is a very recent development for my lightweight quiver. For years I used 190cm (long for my 125 lb weight) edgeless 50mm xc touring skis. I've also used skate skis in the Pemi, Zealand Notch, and logging roads. On this setup, touring is the priority, not turning.

Confusingly, I am also a practitioner of some ill-defined thing in between -- let's call it "backcountry skiing", though both my heavy-tele and xc setups also serve for "backcountry skiing". For this in-between activity, I'll ideally take a midweight setup -- formerly with a no-wax base, but with wax and skins these days -- which is usually in between my "heavy tele" and xc gear in weight, width, length, and capabilities. I won't win any speed races kicking on the flats compared to being on xc gear, but it's a compromise between how easily I can tour (get deep into the woods and on top of a mountain) and how easily I can make turns and go fast on steeper downhills.

What's best? A closet full of skis and an understanding/enabling wife.

 

[AMF]

What's best? A closet full of skis and an understanding/enabling wife.

That about says it all! Whoever heard of only having one pair of skiis?!?!?

 

[rdl]

I have a good friend who lives in Lake Tahoe who was a die-hard tele skier then switched to AT when he started going for the steeps more.

I was out there last April doing some spring skiing and we talked about the learning curve for telemark skiing -- his comment was he didn't know many "good" telemark skiers who have full time jobs. His point was that becoming a good telemark skier takes a lot of time and isn't something you can learn well spending an occasional weekend doing.

Bob

 

[David Metsky]

I was out there last April doing some spring skiing and we talked about the learning curve for telemark skiing -- his comment was he didn't know many "good" telemark skiers who have full time jobs. His point was that becoming a good telemark skier takes a lot of time and isn't something you can learn well spending an occasional weekend doing.

Interesting theory, but it doesn't follow my observations. I know plenty of expert tele skiers who have full time jobs, it's not rocket science. Things might be different in Tahoe, but I suspect it's just who he hangs out with.

-dave-

 

[rdl]

Things might be different in Tahoe, but I suspect it's just who he hangs out with

Now that I think about, it doesn't seem like many people work in Tahoe -- too busy skiing