We’ve heard it’s spiritual. We’ve heard it has more soul than anything. We’ve heard about the long running telemark “boom” and numerous “meccas” of the sport. Now telemark skiing is being compared to some sort of drug. “It’s so graceful, so powerful. And I get on to such a high it’s my drug. My drug of choice. Telemark skiing,” says a ski instructor in a recent a article from Alaska. Interesting to compare a sport to what I assume is recreational drug use, which frequently leads to some degree of unhappiness or worse. Or perhaps the skier was comparing telemark skiing to Tylenol. If so, mea culpa. Or mea gulpa? Or, in the case of Alaska, mea smoka?
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.
