There is little doubt I’m one of the worst folks to ask about whether I like a ski video or not. That love affair ended after I was invited to a special screening of a Warren Miller movie. At the time, skiing was my purpose, and though I loved Warren’s stuff, the special screening was a let down. In terms of attending, that was a personal thrill. This particular time, however, it really struck me how formulaic Warren had become. I already knew when he was going to say “want your ski? Go get it.” It was funny even in the second Miller flick I saw it in but the third time he played that card it was a let down.

Ski vid’s can be annoyingly formulaic, and maybe they’re supposed to be, and maybe it only bothers me when they fail to inspire. Most miss the mark. Thumping music, athlete’s rippin’ over snow, through the air, powder flying everywhere—the tantalizing visual beauty that skiing can be is typically not enough to motivate me to piss away 20 minutes or an hour watching somebody else have more fun than I am at that time. And besides, it’s not really skiing and it’s not a movie with a plot and character development or a moral; just light and fluffy powder and cameras and action.

Josh Madsen saw that formula, and without abandoning the classic ingredients of ski porn, attempts to do more by reflecting a bit on the roots of telemark. When his promotional tour for Telemark Magazine ended last year he swung by the Sierra and managed to interview ski guide Tom Carter who, along with Alan Bard and Chris Cox, skied the Redline Traverse in the early 80s and helped fuel enthusiasm for all things 3-pin. At the same time Doug Robinson was busy waxing eloquent with the written word about the Nordic way to backcountry ski, and did a solo trans-Sierra in about 20 hours. Folks that know their stuff. I knew he was planning to include them in this vid, so I popped this disk in the drive anticipating some good quotes.

There were some, but not enough. I wanted more. I’m sure Josh wanted to include more too, but since he expects his audience probably wants action and music, most of the commentary was on the cutting room floor. Maybe, hopefully, he’ll release a second edition with more of Robinson’s insight or Carter’s humor overlaid with some bad-ass tele chick’s and dudes rippin’ it up.

It was a relief for this old leatherneck to be spared the thunderous undertones of rap or hip-hop or whatever that stuff is that resembles music and lyrics I don’t want to know. Actually the soundtrack to Hippies, Punx and Misfits was refreshingly melodic, unexpectedly mellow, which I liked, but perhaps it was too mellow for too long in places. It definitely wasn’t the typical dose of ski porn I’ve come to expect.

Josh explores the roots of tele through a few sparse voice overs, and snippets from Carter, Robinson, and yours truly. He certainly doesn’t let any of us dominate, but lets some fine rippers show their stuff. Actually, though I lament the monotony of ski porn I was hungering for a bit more in this vid. After all, that’s what ski vid is about, right? I like the long shots, but would’ve liked more close-in rockabilly action, especially without a rap background. Bring it on brother Josh!

Bottom line, if you like watching great skiers leaving enviable tracks, you’ll probably like this movie. Don’t let a curmudeon’s attitude like mine get in the way of kicking back for an hour and just enjoying some fine tele action with a decent soundtrack.

Get your tele posse together and see it live as Josh Madsen makes his second US movie tour to promote the telemark way and Telemark Skier magazine. (tour schedule here)

Making turns on the south side of Mt. Baldy in Los Angeles country in June 1990.

Back then we knew that 80% of our readership were telemarkers, 25% were using Alpine Touring gear, and about 5% were snowboarders. That was around 1996.

The first time backcountry skiers showed up on the industry’s statistical radar was in 1999, when Leisure Trends reported telemark skiers accounted for 1.7% of the US ski universe. It wasn’t a lot, but it was encouraging to see we had started to show up.

By 1999 Couloir’s readers were using AT 35% of the time, tele was down to 75%, and snowboarders were 15% of our readership. The extra percentage indicated a fair number of folks who were switch hitters. By 2003 tele was down to 60%, AT up to 45%, and snowboarder’s accounted for 20% of Couloir’s readership. Though it wasn’t perfect, it was the most comprehensive analysis of the backcountry crowd at the time.

Fast forward to the present. The SIA Intelligence Report for 2009 arrives in my inbox and a quick browse indicates the rumors that “tele is dead” are exaggerated or SIA still can’t get their numbers right, or both.

Here’s the same graph as on Wildsnow on backcountry equipment sales for the past five years.

The most obvious thing is that sales of backcountry equipment continue to grow. Less obvious from this graph, but nonetheless evident is that sales of AT boots are growing faster than any other backcountry category. However, even though the trend for AT is up, and for tele it is down, it isn’t down dramatically.

In fact, the biggest selling category for backcountry specific products remains telemark bindings. Guess maybe a lot of folks are waking up to the advantages of a free pivot after all. That’s my guess as to why the numbers are so high there.

One thing outside observers don’t understand. Telemark isn’t going away because telemarkers are more fanatical about skiing. I’m not saying snowboarders or alpine skiers don’t get fanatical, some do, and some, like Andrew, are even crazier. On average though, pinheads are more so. You have to be to be a telemarker ‘cuz it doesn’t take a genius to realize that if it’s harder to do and you’re using non-releaseable cable bindings, well, then telemarking is stupid. The problem is, that fails to recognize that as a group we’re stupid for telemark ‘cuz there ain’t no turn like tele. It’s more than just skiing, and it’s more than just a turn, it’s a mistress and we won’t give her up easily.

Powder in Onion Valley, Independence, CA.

But that was only part of the story. The truly unexpected statistic was how many telemarkers there are in the United States at the end of last season (Winter 2010). According to SIA, it was 1.4-million.

No Way!

I called Kelly Davis, Research Director at SIA and she said, “WAY!”

Then she explained why. More survey interviews yields a smaller margin of error. The increase in participation numbers is due to changing what defines participation. The old surveys required participating twice, the new survey only once. The result was numbers increased about 40%.

In that case, these numbers aren’t so bad. I still don’t think there are even 600,000 telemarkers in the US. Maybe 600,000 or even 750,000 backcountry skiers, but not that many tele.

As ever, the exact numbers may be disputed but trends they reflect are really encouraging. Interest in backcountry, or free heel skiing has clearly grown. Even if you prefer, as I do, to interpret telemark skiers as backcountry skiers, that means we account for about 10% of the total ski population in the US, give or take a few points.

There may be a ton of economic doom and gloom out there, but backcountry skiing just keeps on growing, in spite of, or maybe perhaps because of the worldwide economic contraction.

I remember saying that backcountry skiing would really take off when lift ticket prices hit $50. That was around the turn of the century. Serendipitously it was also when Fritschi introduced the FreeRide binding, the first binding that looked beefy enough to stand up to American skiers macho self image. From that point on the growth in backcountry skiing has been steadily increasing, due in part to bindings like the FreeRide, and more recently Marker’s Duke. And the ever increasing cost of ticket prices hasn’t hurt motivation either, with SIA reporting the average ticket is now almost $75.00.

Maybe there really are more than a million backcountry skiers out there, maybe 1.4-million telemarkers isn’t such a stretch.

Updated numbers from SIA (includes 09/10)

© 2010

What about the long term effects? Is one brand really better than another? Has anyone you know stuck with a single brand over time so that we might even be able to tell? And if someone gets skin cancer, was it for lack of using sunscreens regularly, or just during a specific trip, or as this report suggests, maybe it WAS for using the wrong sunscreen.

Do sunscreens accelerate skin cancer?

For reasons that should be evident whenever you lift your head up to drink the free air, the ability to speak your mind is a cornerstone of freedom. If you don’t exercise the rights you have, like muscles, a skill, or a talent, you lose ‘em when you don’t use ‘em. So here’s to celebrating the free exchange of ideas — the reason and rhyme of words — for all things that reflect an earn your turns perspective.