Telemark Ski Festival

Practitioners of telemark skiing say the "freeheel" style is exhilarating and liberating, combining the flexibility of cross-country with the speed of the traditional downhill form. Lovers of telemark have at least three annual U.S. festivals—in Vermont, Michigan and California—to celebrate and learn with races, clinics and parties.

Skiing Freeheel Style

• Telemark is known as “freeheel” style because the skier lifts his heel free of the ski in order to make a turn, unlike in traditional alpine skiing, in which the entire foot is strapped into the ski. To make a telemark turn, the skier bends his knees and lifts his inside heel. Keeping his weight on the inside ski, he then moves the outside ski ahead of the inside until finishing the turn.

History of the Telemark Style

• Sondre Norheim, a competitive skier from Morgedal in the Telemark region of Norway, is known as the father of telemark skiing. “Norheim would land his jumps in the tele stance and finish with a stylish and smooth telemark turn," Mitch Weber writes on the website Telemark Tips. "Soon other skiers…adopted the new turn style.” Weber and other observers trace the modern rise of telemark popularity to the 1960s and 70s, when a group of cross-country skiers in and around Crested Butte, Colorado, began using telemark to traverse the deep powder of the backcountry in cross-country equipment.

Vermont: Mad River Glen

• Each March since 1975, the North American Telemark Organization has hosted its festival in central Vermont. The 2010 event included clinics for novice, intermediate and advanced telemarkers, as well as for children, with a mountain race open to everyone. Organizers threw a party with live music, dancing and awards, and gear manufacturers offered demos of the latest equipment.

California: Bear Mountain

• The Bear Valley Telemark Festival began in 1997 with 14 skiers gathered in a rented house. Organizers say it is now "the largest and most celebrated freeheel event on the West Coast," and it takes place in one of California's major ski resorts. For three days in February, participants enjoy educational events and celebrations in addition to plenty of telemarking practice and competition.

Michigan: Glen Arbor

• Michigan telemarkers converge on the Homestead, a resort on Lake Michigan, for a telemark festival in February. Events are held at the resort and in the adjoining Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. The festival includes clinics and instruction for telemarkers of all skill levels, and the 2010 events included a race sanctioned by NASTAR, the world's largest recreational skiing and snowboarding race organization.