The Community

You’re putting on your boots in the parking lot and notice the person next to you is also donning similar duck-billed boots. This observation is marked by both of you and quaint greetings are exchanged. Walking up to the lift line you notice people in front of you with that lose cable flopping on their backs. Riding the lifts you easily notice that unique turn whipping away below you. You see these freeheel characteristics almost anywhere you ski, in the backcountry, on the lifts, and now even, in the park. Your noticing of this is what brings you into the community, a community of freeheelers out there for the joy of the turn.

Telemark skiing has been around for centuries, the telemark community for nearly the same span of time. It is a community that our other snow sport brothers could simply not understand. In this community, it matters not how old you are, or for how long your heel has been free of its confines, you are a freeheeler and for that you have gained the right of the wave, the nod, the undignified hello, and if you’re lucky, the “FHL wink.” And as a member of this community, who also has the respect of your other freeheelers, you too offer them back.

Because of freeheelers unique community, festivals have been set up around the world to honor this tradition and to bring us together in a global collective. Large international festivals are the best place to go to witness this comradeship and none better than the Stubai Telemark Festival in Stubai, Austria and the La Skieda Telemark Festival in Livigno, Italy. At each of these hundreds of participants from around Europe, and even the United States, gather for delicious food, great beer, equipment demos, a couple of competitions, and of course friendly skiing. But one need not lose oneself to the Alps to participate in these great demonstrations of this telemark community, as there are often several smaller festivals at local mountains around the nation, each offering an equally good time.

But a question must be raised. As telemark skiing has progressed and as more and more people begin to take up the freeheel concept, are we losing this sense of community? Are we less and less willing to give that wave, that hello, or the wink? At times it seems as if there is a sense amongst some of the newer entrants that they want to be unique, they enjoy being one of the lone freeheelers on their hill. Other times it appears as if some of those who have been in the community the longest fear to see the sport progress along lines similar to snowboarding or alpine skiing. Yet, such divisions will only break apart this community of which they feel is so “unique” and “traditional.”

Telemark skiing is distinctive, giving many in its community a sense of relation to one another. But beyond knowing that the turn is different and the boots are easier to walk in, comes the unique appreciation for skiing that freeheelers share. Such an appreciation has drawn together freeheelers from around the world into a global community, bound not by age, style, language, or country, but bound by this unequaled consciousness of the free heel.

 

Contributed by Josh Madsen 

More posts