Long ago, telemark teamed with gear. Speaking of it is to almost invoke dinosaurs and Bronze Age civilizations. It happened on this earth but is so detached from the current time as to seem fantastical. Brands that would later seem far from the free-heel world were then integral to its rise. The late Canadian backcountry firm G3 and their Targa binding – a model now often reviled in retrospect, usually unfairly – may be the best-selling telemark trap of all time. And Blac

Skiing – no matter the discipline – has long evolved toward more rigid gear. Skiers of the alpine style saw their boots turn from leather to plastic in the 1960s, the first step in a progression toward lighter, higher performance materials as the decades wore on. From leathers on clamp-down bindings to the carbon/grilamid footwear of today, alpine boots have modernized markedly. Even snowboarding has entered this realm, with companies like Phantom Snow developing plastic, h

Recent telemark lore reminds us that the sport not so long ago suffered a profound retrograde. Roughly from the late-aughts to only a few years ago, telemark was dismissed, ignored, forgotten. Telemark is dead, an idiom that oft left the mouths of retailers unable to move free-heel gear as the sport fell out of favor in the 2000s evolved into a refrain uttered at the sport's expense, used by a skiing populace all too ready to throw telemark under the bus. No one cares you t

I did something today I thought I never would. In the silence of my windowless office, I opened a new browser, and clicked over to Black Diamond Equipment’s site. I renewed my industry discount, received their boilerplate Welcome Back! email, and bought two rechargeable headlamps. After checking a few work emails I then headed over to a large outdoor deal site, perused countless options in grid layout, and purchased a few LifeStraw water bottles and a new Katadyn pump-action

Social media became the main conduit for discussing a generation-defining avalanche. In the process, conjecture and reaction reigned.

But it’s far from guaranteed The snow was odd at the base of the mountain; slushy on the surface, but icy and firm just below. My skis shuddered trying to find an edge as meltwater soaked my ski pants. Nearing the bottom, I skied toward a younger telemark skier, fresh-faced and with his goggles running under his helmet. As I approached him, he flicked his skis in a balanced nose butter, spinning completely before coming to rest, looking right at me. “Nice, man,” I said to the

Thoughts on why we do this. I woke up before my family on that chilly November morning, and sat at my computer with a cup of coffee as the sunrise filled our living room with light. I was checking my telemark blog’s Instagram for the usual reasons, hoping that I might have a few likes, maybe a few new followers. Instead I had a message. It was a note from a fellow telemark content creator. He had been offered a recurring column at a mainstream ski magazine but wasn’t sure if

And the role the writer plays Desolation, from The Course of Empire, by Thomas Cole (1836) A single old lamp with a broken leg lights the living room, the sun having long ago left the western horizon behind. My children are asleep upstairs. And I’m standing just feet from my television, fiddling with a tiny Apple TV remote, trying to bring to the screen a ski movie I’ve been told for months I need to see. Released in the fall of 2025, the Armada Skis team film Ornada, with it

In a dizzying world of corporate-run legacy publications, indie new-age crusaders of long-form, and affiliate-link cash cows–all competing for eyes with social media–the question remains: what do outdoor readers really want?

At times appearing dismissive of the free-heel method, there actually may be more to BLISTER’s treatment of The Turn than meets the eye.

A Telemark Voices guest essay on skiing continental Europe's highest peak

How the coverage of Black Friday and Cyber Monday reveal the ills of outdoor media

What that might mean and why it might matter.

Here we go again.

A protracted if quiet DIY gear revolution and a steadfast base has kept the flame alive in telemark for decades. Now the sport’s...

Fundamental to recent telemark folklore is the notion that as alpine (and certainly alpine touring) equipment evolved over the 90s and...

Once the leading voice of the sport, Josh Madsen's long path has come to a fraught crossroads

The bleeding edge in backcountry free-heel skiing innovation has finally permeated the telemark ether. And at last manufacturers have...

For a time, telemark seemed to disappear altogether from the outdoor media landscape. While Craig Dostie’s EarnYourTurns always kept...

And other musings on free-heel philosophy The firm, cold surface made the snow climb exhilarating. Even as the last in an ad hoc group...