Just back from a wonderful short ski holiday on a 3500+m high glacier above Saas-Fee in Switzerland. After much speculation on the difficulties and some years of pondering, finally decided to take a go at TELEMARK downhill skiing. Happy to report: it is worth the aductor-pain and technical mastering... Hemmingway was an avid fan in the 1920s....
Telemark skiing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Telemark turn became the technique of ski touring in rolling terrain."
Pioneer Sondre Norheim, from Morgedal in Telemark, has often been called the father of modern skiing for inventing the equipment and techniques that led to modern skiing as we see it today. Having grown up in the farmlands of Norwegian Telemark, Norheim invented a “birch” binding that enabled skiers to ski without the risk of losing their skis. Then, in 1870, Norheim introduced a short, curved, flexible ski he crafted in order to allow for easy turning in soft snow. Norheim, at the age of forty-three, went on to become the winner of the first Norwegian downhill skiing competition in Christiania. (modern day Oslo)
