Europe > United Kingdom > Scottish Highlands > Aviemore > Articles > Cairngorms

“Stef!” I wheezed. “Can’t you slow down a second?”

Stef stopped and turned dexterously round on his long skis, glowingly fit against the bright snow.

“Och, it’s only another hundred yards to the top.”

He turned round, and skiied uphill with a technique so smooth he seemed almost to glide. I imagined castrating him while making him sing the ‘I’m very sorry’ song.

We were skiing uphill, adhesive tape stuck to the bottom of our skis to stop us sliding backwards. This was telemark skiing: the art, Stef had told me, of crossing virgin powder on skis using a special kind of boot and binding which, unlike downhill equipment, allows feet and legs to remain completely free of movement so that one can go along the flat and ski uphill as well as down. “It’s a piece of piss,” Stef had said. “You know downhill skiing. You’ll pick up telemarking nae bother.”

I had let this half-Polish, half-Scottish, ex-professional deer-stalker now turned Buddhist ski-instructor, martial-arts freak and all-round madman, talk me into things on previous occasions. It had always ended up sweaty and painful, but also amazing. At the top of the rise, Stef grinned and said; “See, it’s worth it.”

He was right. Laid out below us was a wide bowl of new snow, gold where the sun hit it, blue in the shadow of the hills. A herd of red deer was moving across the valley bottom. It was so quiet that one could hear the sound of their hooves breaking the crust on the snow.

“There’s the beauty of telemarking,” Stef announced in his Presbytarian Minister voice. “Now we go down.”

Downhill telemark technique: when making a turn drop to one knee, push one foot forward to make one ski out of two and carve your turn in a kneeling position. Push the right foot forward to turn right, the left foot forward to turn left. Simple? Not so simple. Thump! I was down. I got up and tried again: kneel, stick front foot out... thump. The deer took off as I swore. I got up again, let the slope take me, dropped to one knee, pushed my front ski forward and… “Yes!” I was carving my first telemark turn, the unfamiliar movement taking me in a smooth wide arc across the slope. “Wa-hey!” I said, meaning to express the strange, gliding grace of it. I rose from the kneeling position, let the slope take me again, dropped back to one knee - “Yes!” Thump, of course. Never mind. I had telemarked! It got easier after that.

Since then I’ve been hooked. There’s no question that, for experiencing the real winter beauty of the mountains, telemarking is the way to do it, especially in Scotland where the downhill pistes, such as Aviemore and Glen Shee (or ‘Glen Shite,’ as Stef calls it) are ugly, crowded and over-used. Once one gets good at it, telemark skiing allows one to tackle steep, unmade snow ways and way off pistes; stuff that downhillers never get to experience.

If you want to give it a try, the best school is Highland Guides. They lead weekend or 4-day trips into the Cairngorms from Aviemore. Tell them your previous ski experience (or lack of it) and they’ll tell you what level course to book. Complete beginners learn the basics of uphill and flat technique before they start on the difficult turns. Those who already have some experience with cross-country skiing can go straight into telemarking.

The sport does have one major drawback - it’s beergut-burning work. Iif you’re prepared to spend a weekend or two learning intensively then not only will the mountains become your oyster, but you’ll start looking alright with your shirt off.

• More from Rupert Isaacson