MITOC goes to the 2004 New England Telemark Festival!

Summary
OwnerMITOC Gallery Administrator
Creation Date2004-08-25 00:02:40 UTC-0400
Description


MITOC goes to the 2004 New England Telemark Festival!
Date: March 6-7, 2004
Participants: Chris Glazner, Greg Wallace, Timothee Doutreax, Zoltan Malga, Josh Levinger, Grigory Kolesov, Summer Austin, Mike Oltmans, Christina Haggerty
Author: Chris Glazner

Nine MITOCers disregarded the weatherman and made their way up to Wildcat Mountain for this year's New England Telemark Festival, March 6 and 7th. It was an absolute blast!

There was a bit of drizzle Saturday morning, but it cleared up by lunch and was fantastic after that with good spring conditions as the floppy heeled brethren took over the mountain. Many of the MITOCers participated in the NET costume contest and dressed up as an assorted variety of nerds, as you can see in the attached picture of myself and Timothee. Josh, Zoltan, Mike, Grigory and Greg also got in on the costume action, and Greg created an almost-but-not-quite replica of the Tim the Beaver mascot outfit. The crew skied in their costumes all day!

Greg won the main event of the weekend, the uphill/downhill race, while dressed as a large, telemarking beaver. Although he was third to the top of the course, he was able to take his skins off with his skis still on, while other contestants were forced to remove their skis or fall over quite a bit. For this noble effort, Greg won a pair of new Atomic R:EXs.

While Greg was busy winning the compeition, the rest of us took free telemarking classes taught by the NET staff at several different levels. By the end of the day, everyone was looking much better. No front stiff legs or poddles running between our feet!

Some had to take off Saturday night, while others stayed at Intervale to prepare for the bluebird day on Sunday, with magnificent views of Tuckerman's Ravine and Mt. Washington across the notch. More skiing, more lessons. Grigory also learned the value of a ski leash the hard way.

The festival was amazing--for the price of a lift ticket, we got free demo equipment, free lessons, beer, and tons of free stuff. I even won a new pair of bindings! Josh, after his first two days on tele, bought a pair of skis on Sunday. If that doesn't tell you how good of a time we had, I don't know what will.