Ken Roberts wrote:
The "middle range of telemark-optimal touring is too small to be worth it
for me -- I can't justify maintaining a third kind of incompatible gear for
such a small payoff. And I have several athletic skiing friends in different
countries with graduate technical education like the original poster, who've
made the same choice of limiting to two kinds of ski gear: track skis
(mostly for skating) and Alpine Touring skis for both moderate and steep
touring. Except for a few die-hards, bored lift-served downhill skiers, and
Norwegians, telemarking is over.

Yes and no:

I agree that there's no room at all for three incompatible setups, but
I'd skip the alpine touring/randonne gear instead of the telemark skis,
simply because it is at least halfway possible to ski flat areas on the
telemark skis.

OTOH, with sufficient technical ability, a skinny pair with metal edges
and NNN BC bindings can do it all. Afaik all the fastest traverses of
the "Haute Route" (sp?) has been done with nordic touring skis.

Terje

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