A Telemark Crossroads

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As I found my seat in the gondola car, I immediately noticed the square toe on his ski boot. This was years ago, and I had only recently made the switch completely to telemark skiing, now fully engaging in the often solitary endeavor of learning The Turn. And I couldn’t help but be drawn to the fellow skier’s duckbilled boot – the classic footwear of the 75mm norm. I was wearing the same style gear, and was eager to chat with anybody about my newfound obsession. The gray wisps of hair escaping from under this fellow’s ski helmet set me at ease. I could use some perspective from a viewpoint longer than my own, I thought.

Asking about the make and model of his kicks, the congenial stranger readily conversed. “I love these boots, but they don’t make these ones anymore,” he said.

Having heard rumblings of a coming (if incorrectly prophesied) telemark apocalypse – an approaching end-times to manufacturing where the free-heel skier would be left utterly alone to their own devices - I related that I had begun hoarding hardware of my favorite 75mm bindings, and was considering buying another pair of my preferred boots – not because I needed them – simply because I felt compelled to prep for the inevitable.

“I would do that if I was you,” the fellow responded.

The future of not just the 75mm norm, but telemark gear in general then seemed in doubt. Now, as a new wave of participation seems close at hand – and borne on the back of modern bindings and their new norms – 75mm gear is facing a different but still impending doom. Scarpa and Crispi have culled from their boot offerings, while G3 long ago killed off the Targa, maybe the best-selling 75mm binding of all time. The sweet, sensual flex of the duckbill seems again to be on its last legs - this time, perhaps for real.

Before the New Telemark Norm (NTN) - complete with its game-changing edge engagement and backwards incompatibility - became widely adopted, 75mm gear – the Nordic Norm developed by Norwegian manufacturer Rottefella in the 1920s – was the telemark norm. Regardless of its stronger edge transmission, early iterations of the NTN platform rebuffed many with its rigidity. Poor word of mouth and a rush to market certainly didn’t help. Thus 75mm gear continued its reign as the gear of choice into telemark’s dark days of the retrograde 2010s.

And the writing seemed to be on the wall then. Manufacturing was grinding to a halt – Black Diamond, long a stalwart of the free-heel industry, had recently dropped their entire telemark catalog, boots, bindings, and all. And NTN – still relegated to failed platform status by many an ignorant free-heeler – seemed far from the answer. 75mm gear continued to be viewed as the pinnacle of true telemark skiing in that moment, and fear of losing the sensation the platform provided drove many to stock their closets with backups.

While the mechanisms surrounding this eventuality have changed – NTN (and other norms like the Telemark Tech System) is now seen as superior to 75mm by most telemark skiers and manufacturers – the consequences have finally come to fruition. 75mm gear, the nearly 100 year old platform that telemark skiers have long relied on now sees little innovation, and is being eclipsed by newer, exciting norms. And thus discontinuations have come faster and faster for the duckbill gear. As forum chatter and ski shop banter speaks to 75mm last days, many are left to wonder what will come of their favorite gear, now possibly relegated to obsolescence by the new wave of equipment.

Manufacturers have been keenly aware of the shifting landscape of telemark norms over the last decade-plus, their often small, hard-scrabble operations living and dying on evolving to meet the needs of their clientele. That includes eminent binding manufacturer 22 Designs, founded and owned by Chris Valiante and Collins Pringle. Since inheriting the Hammerhead from Russell Rainey in 2004, Valiante and Pringle have been firmly on the cutting edge of telemark design, their innovations often helping to mold preferences in the sport.

And that drive to move forward has evolved their approach. Speaking of NTN’s original release, Valiante says “at first we kind of looked at it as something a competitor was doing, didn’t really want to have much to do with it, and I don’t think we could have initially anyways. Rottefella had the patents. And it seemed like they wanted to be the only ones making bindings.”

As NTN infrastructure improved, and the opportunity to license the technology emerged, Valiante and Pringle saw an opportunity. “A few years later we kind of started to see the boots got a little bit better and we started to see some of the potential of some of the possibilities with an NTN binding, of having step in, more releasability, better control of the ski with a better connection to the ski,” Valiante says.

What ensued was 22 Designs’ creation of the Outlaw X in 2015, seen by many as the leading NTN binding in all of telemark. Its robust and reliable construction, myriad features, and ability to drive a ski in the most aggressive of ways has marked a watershed moment in modern telemark innovation, and has long been 22 Designs best-selling binding. With that, the manufacturer has seen less demand for their legacy 75mm options, the venerable Axl and Vice, upgraded descendants of Rainey’s legendary Hammerhead.

With that 22 Designs has made a marked step toward an NTN future, announcing an inbounds version of the Outlaw X - the Bandit - and choosing to discontinue the Vice while alluding to Axl’s eventual demise. “With 75mm split between the Axl and the Vice, you know, [it was] just kind of hard to make two 75mm bindings still, just kind of wasn’t a lot of quantity there, and [it was] dropping,” says Pringle.

22 Design's decision to move toward dropping their 75mm bindings is a direct response to market forces - some they undoubtedly helped create with their innovative Outlaw X - and the future of the company looks to be firmly NTN-oriented. “NTN – just looking at what our sales are – NTN continues to grow, we’re seeing less 75mm, you know, there’s less boot options there as well,” says Valiante.

But while he may see 22 Designs’ future as one without 75mm, Valiante envisions a future for the norm as part of a touring-oriented paradigm - on softer, lower boots like the Scarpa T4 - and not unlike the rugged touring vibe telemark took in this country during its 1970s reawakening. “I think we’re going to see 75mm continue to decrease,” he says, continuing “and eventually maybe become just sort of that light touring, three-pin, T4-type of setup with NTN kind of really dominating true tele skiing.”

While 22 Designs is moving away from 75mm production, other companies are seeing the norm continue to have healthy sales. That includes Voile, who has been manufacturing 75mm bindings since the early 1980s, establishing the manufacturer as one of the leading legacy companies in the sport. While the firm has since added modern options to their quiver of binding offerings - including the marvelous Dynafit-style telemark tech system Transit binding - 75mm still makes up much of the company’s sales dollars.

“In our retail store - we have some more offerings. We're carrying 22 Designs Outlaw and Lynx. We're carrying the Meidjo,” says Voile partner and production manager Mark Christopherson. “And it's been really interesting how we are getting a lot of telemarkers coming to us buying skis, buying bindings, wanting us to mount them. But, you know, let's say we get 10 orders in, I'd say five to six of those are 75mm.”

Christopherson has also had eyes on Rottefella’s newer Xplore system, an efficient two-pin-esque binding platform that promises not only efficient, cross-country style touring, but adept downhill turns.

But while the system may be an improvement for skiers looking for occasional telemark turns during overland tours, questions remain as to its ability to fully replace 3-pin-style crosscountry-downhill skiing, let alone the remaining breadth that 75mm gear covers by itself.

“The Xplore, it's another choice, but I think it's for a slightly different kind of skier,” says Christopherson. “Maybe someone that wants to walk more, wants to do more rolling terrain. And, you know, we’ve tested them side by side and I still think the 75mm gives you a quicker edge engagement and I think it's just a better performing binding.”

Christopherson sees the future of 75mm similarly to 22 Design’s Valiante and Pringle - the norm does best incorporating a touring-oriented, soft-boot but still fairly aggressive kind of skiing, and no other platform - NTN, Xplore, or otherwise - quite competes for the same skiers.

“Until something really better comes out, I think it will be around,” says Christopherson of the 75mm norm. “But for us it's the fish scale ski, it's the leather or lower plastic boot and either a three-pin or a three-pin cable. And that's a real genre for us. Is it less than it was a few years ago? Yes, but we're still selling them.”

While the binding manufacturers continue to grapple with 75mm’s dwindling sales, Scarpa has felt the pinch on the norm’s boots. More than any other larger manufacturer, Scarpa has been instrumental in modern telemark’s development. The maker was not just the first to market with an all-plastic telemark boot in the early nineties, Scarpa has since stayed the path, constantly evolving their free-heel offerings, making them the leading boot maker in all of telemark.

In that time, Scarpa has developed many cutting-edge boot favorites - the low-cut and light T4 - a direct descendant of the original plastic telemark boot, the Terminator - has long been a go-to for those in the 3-pin, crosscountry-downhill realm, while advents like the burly T1 was footwear of choice for many telemark rippers, especially during the sport’s second wave of popularity in the late nineties and early 2000s.

Since then, Scarpa has developed and discontinued many a telemark boot - including NTN styles - and while they are poised to release a revamped Tx Pro NTN boot in the fall of 2024, their 75mm options have atrophied to the aforementioned T4 and the T2, a lower, softer, but eminently capable descender - often referred to as the best-selling telemark boot of all time.

“75mm is alive and well in our collection of telemark boots,” says Kim Miller, CEO of Scrapa North America. “But it’s obviously limited to the T2 and the T4 now.” Scarpa saw aggressive skiers move away from the 75mm market to NTN, while those who stayed with the old norm gravitated to the platform’s softer touring paradigm. This led to the discontinuation of the much loved T1 in 2022.

“We did it as long as we could,” says Miller of the T1 laughing. “I was getting a lot of grief from my colleagues in Italy, like ‘why are we shooting these boots still when we only need less than 500 for the world? Well, people still want them, most of those were in the States, but even that number shrank down to a number where it didn’t make sense. No retailer is going to carry them so we were just doing it direct – [and just] a few.”

Like many of the legacy Scarpa 75mm boots, the T1 had reigned as the king of heavy telemark (along with its related T-Race) for the better part of decades. Complicating its future wasn’t just that sales had dwindled; the boot’s viability was squeezed by its aged features. “From the standpoint of the T1 – the other thing is that if we were going to continue with the current T1, it needs an update,” says Miller.

But while the industry veteran points to a related drop in aggressive 75mm bindings - not unlike what Valiante and Collin’s have seen at 22 Designs - he leaves an ever so tiny opening for the T1s future. “I like to say never say never because these things will surprise you,” says Miller. “But for sure the sales of… bindings is a really good indicator of what people are thinking because they buy bindings more quickly than they buy boots.”

As boots and bindings for strong, often resort-oriented telemark skiing have coalesced around NTN, and as modern alpine-style touring gear moves toward the telemark tech system, a niche has opened up for 75mm gear in between these platforms and the crosscountry-leaning Xplore system.

“T2 is perfect for that terrain – it’s rolling terrain with great powder, and real hills, real skiing,” says Miller. “But you do have an element of touring in that. So that’s what a lot of people are using those for now.”

75mm gear thus seems to have carved out not only a use-case for itself, but possibly a viable path to continued manufacture. In a corner of the telemark world unserved by other norms, where overland touring - often on skinless, fish scale skis - and the desire to make great turns meets, 75mm continues to be the gear of choice for many, allowing an expansive experience on an supremely versatile platform.

“I wouldn’t count 75mm out at all, and it’s because of the rugged touring space,” says Miller. Though the norm may indeed continue on, discontinuations and competition from other platforms for users and resources leaves plenty of shaking-out left. “I see a lot of [what] the binding guys are thinking about – or rethinking – and our T2 sales are solid, so the biggest thing people are asking is ‘which binding should I use now? Where can I get good bindings?’” says Miller.

“And the funny thing is that it’s the same answer that it was ten or fifteen years ago. Voile is the best 75mm – most prolific - 75mm binding manufacturer in North America. 22 Designs is still selling Axls. But most people are seeing the same thing we are. It’s kind of declining down and an Axl is not a T2 binding, it’s obviously made for a T1. I consider it evolution in a lot of ways. And following the skier in this case.”

Telemark and its skiers evolve on. While the sport long relied on just the 75mm platform for a free-heel turn, no matter the skier’s philosophy, innovation has brought more gear options to the fold, allowing for a telemark quiver that not only crosses over many norms, but also allows a precision of gear choice the sport has never quite seen, with the equipment now matching the continuum of terrain, conditions, and mood. And it seems that 75mm - regardless of the perception of its extinction - may yet find a future as the equipment of choice for one of telemark’s most core and enduring iterations. And, as such, a few companies in the space may keep the vibe alive for telemark’s soulful duckbill.

“There’s I’d say about four or five brands that have really stayed committed to the sport and the sport is really kind of dependent on these brands to keep doing good stuff and to keep pushing stuff out,” says Miller.

Not only are there a handful of brands keeping the flame alive for telemark as a whole - like 22 Designs, Voile, and Scarpa - there’s nearly as many that see a path ahead for the classic, adaptable, and nimble 75mm norm.