EarnYourTurns

Looks like it’s that time of year again, when the outdoor industry gets together to show their wares, party, and get psyched for the coming season of snow and selling goods. I’ll be making the trek again, but in scaled back form, just moi representing the EarnYourTurns perspective. It IS the summer show, so the focus is on paddle sports, hiking, backpacking, trail running and nothing about snow.

Even though summer activities will be the focus of the majority there will be plenty of companies there with a year round focus and I’ve always found a nugget or two of information for the coming ski season to be had in the air-conditioned safety of the Salt Palace. If there’s anything worth passing on, I’ll try to start doing so in a timely manner. Until then, stand by…

As our economy has contracted, I’ve begun to eliminate all the extra stuff that I had unconsciously been holding onto in the delusional belief that more stuff was evidence of prosperity or some other such rot. When I realized I’d spent over eight-thousand dollars to store a bunch of stuff that could’ve been replaced for about $500 it was time to adopt a new paradigm about stuff. You can’t take it with you, and at some point it just gets in the way. Deb says, “do, dump, or delegate,” so I’ve been trying to dump as much as I can ever since that lesson hit home. Light is right applies to more than just mountaineering.

Two months ago three decades of slides became the object of pruning. Been going through the boxes of seconds that I’ve held onto thinking I might use them some day. It’s been an interesting walk down memory lane, and completely underscores the stupidity of lugging around boxes of celluloid that were relegated to the dust bin long ago. If I were ruthlessly efficient I’d just toss the boxes into the trash, but the part of me that believed there was value in that film demanded I give every image a second look before tossing it.

One of the nuggets recovered is below. I was reminded of its existence yesterday when someone posted a thread on telemarktips about how hard learning to telemark is. There are lots of good tricks for learning to tele. My two faves are simple exercises to control the natural tendency of your hands to be in the wrong place. Someone once told me “if your hands are in the wrong place, your feet can’t do what they’re trying to do.” On the otherhand, when you’re learning to telemark, heck even after you’ve learned to telemark, falling is a regular experience so my advice to Butch was to recognize that falling is not failing, it’s just part of the telemark deal.

With that in mind, knowing how to do a should-roll turn can be an important safety maneuver. Below is a good example. Notice the excellent positioning of the hands, head and shoulder for sending this under appreciated trick. If you can get your hands and head to anticipate the correct movement, your body will follow.

A perfectly executed Shoulder-Roll Turn. Free Heels advised.

While there are many people who have contributed to the growth of ski mountaineering in America, few were more instrumental than Paul Ramer. It was his vision, more than any other single man’s which accurately defined, perhaps prophesied, the current landscape of the sport. Some of you reading this became aware of backcountry skiing through more contemporary voices, but they all stood on the developments and ideas first promoted in America by Paul Ramer.

Against America’s tidal wave of enthusiasm for Telemark, Paul was adamant that Alpine Touring (AT) was the way, not Nordic. It was an uphill battle all the way. Steve Barnett’s book “Cross-Country Downhill” distilled the enthusiasm for backcountry skiing in 1976, and his choice of telemark gear cast the mold for those who followed. He was just following Ric Borkovec, who chose Nordic as a rehab option to a ski injury, and then found exhilaration in the freedom it provided. Others, like Doug Robinson, Paul Parker, and Alan Bard began to wax eloquent on the telemark turn and the die seemed cast. When the first all-plastic telemark boot arrived, the Terminator, American interest in AT practically dissolved.
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