New Telemark Guide

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The snow's point of view of Scarpa T-Races driving Linkens on Line Prophet 100's
This wiki is a descendant of the TelemarkTips.com discussion forum, from where much of the information presented here has been mined. Often, discussion forums are not the best presentation of information due to the linear discussion format. As a result, the same questions are asked ad nauseum, with increasingly fervent "Search, JONG!" replies. One such example of this is the extreme volume of discussion about the new Rottefella telemark binding.

The excitement and mystery surrounding the telemark ski industry's most significant effort in recent years to advance telemark equipment, New Telemark Norm (NTN) has produced literally hundreds of pages and thousands of words in forums. While the discussion is enlightening and often entertaining, the shear volume of topics on the subject, and the tendency for those topics to devolve into philosophical arguments, make it difficult to find conclusive answers to many simple questions.

While this site has initially been started to compile NTN information, it should become a general resource for telemark equipment both NTN and 75mm, as well as mounting tips and data about specific skis.


Contents

Quick Links

What Is Telemark Skiing?

Beginner telemark skier on low-angle slope
Telemark skiing is most easily defined by its specialized technique, which is recorded as being invented by skier Sondre Norheim in the village of Morgedal, in the Telemark county of Norway.

Also known as freeheel skiing, the drop-knee technique is distinct and recognizable, necessitated by the fact that the binding is designed to allow the heel to lift up from the surface of the ski. This feature was originally intended to allow the skier to make use of cross-country ski travel techniques across flat ground, while a very specialized technique for downhill turning was developed to account for having no resistance to pivoting forward in the binding.

Considered a niche sport by modern standards, telemark skiing enjoys a small but loyal base of skiers worldwide, who tend to be very opinionated on gear and technique related topics. Mitch Weber of TelemarkTips.com has written a great history/editorial on telemark skiing.


Telemark Binding Conventions

Binding design and functionality is core to telemark, as it is what fundamentally distinguishes it from alpine/fixed heel skiing. The introduction of dynamic movement, and the concept of the binding as a functional machine, opens up a world of designs and visions for how the binding should be.

75mm Duckbill

75mm boot/binding system
Used by the majority of the telemarkers, the 75mm "duckbill" design was invented by Bror With in the first half of the 20th century. Utilizing a shaped, trapezoidal boot toes, the 75mm binding retains the boot either through 3 small pins that penetrate the boot sole at the tip, or by a heel cable that forces the boot toe into a receiver cup with tensioned inline spring cartridges.


The majority of bindings on the market today use the 75mm convention, with offerings from Black Diamond, G3, 22 Designs, Voile, Garmont(7TM), Linken, Bomber Industries, and Rottefella.

New Telemark Norm (NTN)

Closeup of a recent vintage NTN boot and binding
Rottefella of Norway introduced their New Telemark Norm (NTN) system in early 2007 to an eager but skeptical sport of telemark skiers. The system's objective was to provide a freeheel telemark ski binding that featured lateral release, increased lateral rigidity, tunable performance, and free-pivot touring functionality.


Currently only Rottefella manufactures a binding for the NTN convention, but 3 of the 4 major telemark boot manufacturers (Scarpa, Garmont, and Crispi) make NTN-compatible boot models, with Scarpa and Crispi offering multiple performance-varying models.

Gear Reference

So many skis, so many bindings, and a few boots:

Telemark Boots

Skis

Telemark Bindings


Tech Shop


Examples & Videos

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