It’s hard for her to decide which skis to use and when-but maybe not too hard. Hannah has only skied a little more than two hours with her heals locked down. “It’s all very awkward…but they’re really fun.” “I feel like I’m going through puberty again,” Hannah says, with a sheepish giggle. This season, she became the last member of her formerly tele-ing family to finally buy a modern AT setup.
My friend Hannah-an adult wearer of Crocs, which may seem unrelated but is not-comes from the knee-bending stronghold of Durango, Colorado, and has tele-ed for nearly 30 years. But it should also be noted that I have never tried a dog turd casserole either, and yet, I still just know it ain’t for me. It should be noted that I have never tele-ed, which may cause you to think that my confused response to the genuflected turn holds no sand. Sure, it kinda gets the job done but it should come with a wheelbarrows-worth of extra strength ibuprofen for all the frustration and pain it causes. Tele-ing is the Microsoft Outlook of the skiing world. When given the choice between a calculator and a slide ruler, no one refuses them and pulls an abacus out of their backpack. I’ve heard tele-skiers defend their devotion by contending that the difficulty is the allure, which is a brow-furrowing statement. But then, around when we invented fire, the wheel, and smiling, AT bindings, boots, and skis surpassed any telemark claim on efficiency in the mountains. Now, I understand that eons ago, when we skiers had to scare away brontosauruses from clomping down all the untracked powder, telemark skiing solved the mobility problem-in terms of ease of use and weight-of the backcountry-traveling wiggler. And there I sit, wondering what in the actual hell tele-ers are still doing on those prehistoric bindings and boots. Just when I think that I’ve seen the last creaky knee drop, a homemade wool-hat-and-monocle-adorned dude named Jasper or Moonspirit schmears a pigeon-toed turn just below me as I ride the lift. Like the reddish orange stain that clings to Tupperware long after you’ve eaten the leftover spaghetti, telemarkery refuses to scrub away from skiing. I ask why he still telemarks after surgery like that, what with all the improvements in alpine and touring equipment. And that’s when I see his boots and bindings.
He notices my noticing him, and tells me it’s been a year since his double knee replacement. He climbs into the truck bed, drops trou, and pulls up two neoprene knee braces. Out jumps a salt-n-pepper shaggy haired skier. I’m chomping on a sammich atop my skis, placed binders down in a snow bank on the Bypass Road at Snowbird, when the old truck pulls in next to me. It’s not a great look to have your mouth agape in confusion while it’s filled with deli meat and cheese, but I can’t help myself.
#BONDI RESCUE DUNNO FULL#
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