The Telemark Diaries - Day Two

On Sunday, the last day of 2006, I found myself with a penchant for pain. What better way to quench this thirst than to hit Loveland Ski Area for my second day on tele skis?

On Sunday, the last day of 2006, I found myself with a penchant for pain. What better way to quench this thirst than to hit Loveland Ski Area for my second day on tele skis? I’ve never been there before, and it being the holidays, traffic was light both Sunday morning and afternoon.

It’d had been a couple weeks since my first stint on teles. I was a little nervous that I may have to start over. I took precautions and started on the easiest terrain they have, Chair 7’s All Smiles and Take Off. I was doing neither of these. I looked, but there were no runs named Confidence Lost, or Watch Out, so they had to do.

After a few runs with the kids I decided that I needed a longer run to fully appreciate my lack of skill. I headed over to Chair 3 to take a stab at Boomerang, a longer winding green run. I handled it surprisingly well, and with fewer people around my confidence increased even though my ability hadn’t. I kept coming back to Boomerang, (appropriately named) working on the Telemark lunging motion back and forth across the run the whole way down. This seemed to be a pretty smart thing to do, as I was soon linking turns. Ugly turns, but turns none the less.

After three hours or so, I decided it’s time for the blues. The speed was intimidating, as I experienced brief moments of what can only be described as “loss of control.” You may have heard of this, seen someone else experience this, or maybe have even experienced this yourself. It is a different feeling. And by “different,” I mean “bad.”

Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” I can say that on this day, I did something that scares me and everyone around me. Telemark.