Quote for the week - 5

[Phil]

From Poulsen again (pg. 48,49 and FWIW a “swing” is the same as a turn.)

It's important to realize that during the developmental period, for the skiers of Norway and their acolytes, the most important measure of skiing prowess was the ability to cover ground as efficiently as possible. Turns were viewed as a necessary evil. In the Caulfeild book, soon to be quoted, also from my grandfather's collection, it is stated in no uncertain terms that the best skiers were “straight-runners,” who took everything as straight as possible, with the best style being that with the skis close enough together to leave only a single track. This was the rule as skiing spread in popularity outside of Norway and it wasn't until Mathias Zdarsky introduced his Lilienfeld technique, at the turn of the 20th century, that turning started to become more important than pure straight running. Caulfeild, a strict Norwegian apostle, referred to the those who used that technique as “zig-zagging crawlers.”

What Poulsen says below is in line with that thinking even if it was written a decade later in time. This was certainly the kind of thinking my grandfather operated on. He liked to ski the high ground between Temple Mt., NH and Mt. Watatic, MA over the course of a long day. In between trips, he would take time out to refine his technique on a “practice hill,” but the point wasn't to spend all his time turning, it was to develop the ability to efficiently use the turns on a tour. From one perspective, ski lifts have elevated the use of the “home hillside” to an end in itself. Consequently people riding lifts at a downhill ski area miss the spirit of “real skiing,” in the sense given here. It might also be argued that people skiing around and around on the groomed tracks at a cross-country ski area are also missing out on a different part of the same experience.

“In Norway, while skiing was still merely a means of transportation, the original object of making a swing was to avoid an obstacle or to come to a standstill. The question as to whether or not it was a pretty or spectacular swing never arose. Could you swing to either side, or, from any speed, come to a dead stop within a short distance, you were a skier, and could get about the country. If you couldn't you had better stay at home. Consequently everyone learned the necessary tactics.

By necessary tactics I distinguish between the practical stops and swings which enable one to ski across any country and return with limbs intact and the fancy stops and swings which really constitute playing on your home hillsides. I do not mean to disparage the fancy stops and swings; they are good fun, good exercise, and necessary for a beginner. But in the end such playing on your skis becomes rather monotonous, and until you have a taste of real skiing you cannot understand how such a mere toy as the ski can fascinate so many people of apparent common sense, or acquire the real and lasting love for the sport. And by real skiing I mean taking trips across mountain ranges, through valleys and forests, negotiating the difficulties that present themselves with that joy that only sheer physical supremacy can give, and returning home in condition to run another day. This cross-country skiing is the backbone of the sport, as it was the origin of skiing as a means of transportation, and it should be the ultimate goal of all skiers.”

[Ron Gonzalez]

I love this. Thanks for sharing this with us!

In the short (15 years) time I've been a skiing nut, I've found that combining my love of hiking with my love of skiing has forced me to learn all sorts of new skills on skis, which of course led me to fall in love with making turns. Now I'm addicted to touring for turns, and I love having my newfound ability to ski down slopes in forested areas without constantly falling. Suddenly ski touring is an enormously satisfying experience. You get to explore new places on foot, you get the feeling of gliding on snow, you get the exhilaration of making turns around all sorts of natural obstacles. Your mind is constantly working, looking for the best line through the trees and ledges, and then your body has to accomplish what the mind plans out, using all the techniques you've been working on for years.

"...By real skiing I mean taking trips across mountain ranges, through valleys and forests, negotiating the difficulties that present themselves with that joy that only sheer physical supremacy can give, and returning home in condition to run another day."

Yes, brother!

Well, for myself I can't think of it in terms of "physical supremacy" — one look at me and you know that ain't it — but skiing across mountains, through valleys and forests, using all the skills I've learned to accomplish that "and returning home in condition to run another day"... That's it. Even in the Northeast, that's high adventure.

See the country? Let's cross it!

- Ron G

[Phil]

Thanks. Glad you are liking it.

[Phil Brown]

Thanks for the historical perspective on skiing. I am attaching a photo from a 1936 book called Ski Tracks, which is a compilation of old ski photos. The telemark skier shown is Erling Strom. The Lake Placid Club was given credit for the photo. The quality of reproduction is not great because I took a photo of the photo with my iPhone. Notice the bent knee in the shadow.

Phil Brown
Lost Pond Press
50 Cliff Road, Unit 4 
Saranac Lake, NY
adke...@icloud.com
518-354-3218

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[Phil]

Erling Strom's arm position in the Telemark is identical to the one shown in the Poulsen book that I quoted from. To quote from the facing page: "Whenever I have the occasion to talk to groups of people on skiing and have mentioned the fact that the Telemarken and Kristiania swings and Cross Jumping are fancy maneuvers, which are not absolutely necessary to the equipment of even a good cross-country runner or ski-jumper, I always notice a look of relief on several faces." 

These were the "fancy swings," to which he was referring in the earlier quote, since he goes on to say that he sympathizes with those who felt the relief if it is because "they prefer to spend the short time they can spare for skiing in the ever-new delights of cross-country instead of putting it in on more or less tedious practice on one hill." Coincidentally, Poulsen gives credit in the book to a Mr. H.W. Hicks of Lake Placid Club (among others) for pictures used in the book. The individual pictures are never given credit so it's impossible to tell which ones are L.P.C photos.

Another interesting aside is that it was the picture series of the Telemark from the Poulsen book that clued me into the turn and inspired me to try it for myself when I got my first pair of cross-country skis in the winter of '70-1. As a result, I too held my arms up in the air in that so-called "matador pose" during the first few years of using the turn, which I then viewed as strictly a stopping turn for deep snow. I didn't even think they could be linked in a series, though I remember trying to figure out if I could do it, unsuccessfully at first. It wasn't until others were doing it successfully that I realized I needed to master it. And to do so did require: "more or less tedious practice on one (or other) hill." 

[Ron Gonzalez]

> I realized I needed to master it. And to do so did require: "more or less tedious practice on one (or other) hill." 

It took me 10 years of lift-serve skiing to get a reasonably good telemark going. I'd never downhill skied before, and I was over 40 when I started trying to learn the turn. It would have been so much easier had I started when I was young. Oh well. And now they tell me "telemark is dead." (Again.)

Matador pose!

- Ron Gonzalez 

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[Phil]

Love the graphic. That definitely looks like he's coming in for the kill. 

Telemark may not be "dead." The "holy grail of skiing" is still out there. That do everything boot/binding combination that allows you to go up as well as down and use any kind of technique without much messing around with settings. Perhaps we are getting closer to that point with the new NTN configurations that are being developed. 75 mm might be "dead" though (at least for the lift-serve application.) See here: Is 75 mm dead?

[Ron Gonzalez]

Yeah, I saw that video.

It sounds to me that they're talking to the resort telemark skier looking for an ever more powerful setup. It doesn't sound like they're talking to me.

The thing is, for around here, who in their right mind would take a pair of Madshus Annum, mount a pair of Outlaw X on them, and step in with their 7 lbs/pair Scarpa TX Pro boots? For the kind of backcountry ski touring we often do around southern Vermont, the Catskills, the Berkshires, the southern Adirondacks, you don't need such a big, heavy combination of boots and bindings. You want to be able to wander for 12 miles in a day with maybe 1500 or 2000 feet of vertical in total, and not feel like you're tromping around in Frankenstein boots. What is the NTN version of a pair of Annum skis with 3-Pin Hardwire or Switchback X2 bindings and Scarpa T4 or Scott Excursion boots?

Sometimes I don't even like the Vector BC ski for this kind of thing because its fish scale pattern drags so much, and it's too big a ski for any kind of kick and glide. For some reason the Annum tours much more gracefully and it seems to absolutely love making turns in soft snow (as long as there isn't a bad crust or other nasties to power through). Would you ski up Glastenbury on a pair of V8 BC skis with Outlaw X bindings and TX Pro boots?

It seems to me that it's awfully difficult to improve on the good ol' Switchback and Switchback X2 bindings for what they do. They're not releasable, but they have a free-pivot tour mode, they're reliable, they ski well, and they're simple. They're very highly evolved. The 75mm norm has been around for what, 50 years? It's so far on its evolutionary path, it's basically at its end. Is that any reason to simply abandon it, even though it's still the best setup for up-down-all-around-with-some-steep-to-it?

Maybe I'm wrong about this and I should go get that new $1500 NTN setup. Ummm... Nah.

- Ron Gonzalez 

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[Phil]

Well said.

[Phil Brown]

I recently purchased a pair of Scarpa TX Pros to go with my Lynx NTN bindings and like them a lot. When I bought the Lynx, I also bought a pair of Scott Voodoo boots. The bindings never worked properly with the Voodoo. So I traded up to the Scarpas. It strikes me as a better boot all around. And it weighs less than the Voodoo. The Scarpas weigh a pound more per pair than Excursions (which I also own), but I don’t find the extra weight a hindrance. I’ve used them in the backcountry and at Whiteface. I decided to go NTN because I thought they would enable me to make parallel turns more easily on steep trails and slides in the Adirondacks. I took up backcountry skiing rather late in life and probably will never master the telemark turn. I use my Annums/Excursions for regular touring. I like the sentiment that skiing is first and foremost about cross-country travel. Today a friend and I skied on an old woods road to a pond, crossed the pond on a beaver dam, and headed for a rarely visited slide. We were breaking trail in snow with a thick rain crust and got a late start, so we didn’t make it to the slide. We turned around after three miles. But I took my NTN setup in case we did get there, and it did fine on the flats. Perhaps there are better NTN setups for the backcountry, but I’m satisfied with the Lynx, TX Pros and UltraVectors. I haven’t tried others.

Phil Brown

On Feb 16, 2021, at 9:37 PM, Phil <pklu...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Well said.

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[Phil]

I've got my grandfather's last pair of skis, dating from who knows how long ago, but they have no metal edges and sport the tip wedge common on skis from the 20s and earlier. I just went out to see if my old leather Merrill XCD boots fit in the bindings. They are a perfect match for the width of the toe plate but the old leather strap broke when I went to use the clamp to tighten down on the boot. I rummaged around and came up with a dusty pair of Rottefella Chili heels that have the same style of hook that holds them in place on the sides of the toe plates. I needed a bit of filing to get them to fit around the pin but they seem to be a pretty good replacement for the originals.

My plan is to try the skis out on a place near Blackpoll Mt. in Florida that I reconned earlier this winter. The end of Bliss Rd. isn't plowed and there seem to be some nice gently sloping open fields out where the road ends in summer. Could be the skis are too fragile for this lark but I have no interest in just staring at them for the rest of our time together and using them makes more sense to me. Fresh snow is falling. I'll report on the success of the adventure which will probably happen this weekend.