My twenty seconds of glory in an underground ski film last season didn't cut much ice with the local alpine paparazzi. Snowboarders joked about my Geritol habit. Worst of all, those dazzling telemark goddesses looked through me like I was a mono-skier. I decided it was time to get a life. I bit the bullet and bought a new pair of Scarpa Terminator telemark boots, mounted cable bindings on an unused pair of Hart slaloms, and enrolled in the Alta telemark clinic.
Most resorts offer private lessons, but it's a tough nut to crack on a ski bum's budget.
For thirty dollars at Alta, you get a full afternoon's instruction and more free-heeling than most untrained legs care to endure. The clinics are designed for experience levels from zero to intermediate. They start at about college age, and the sky's the limit. Underwood was the brainchild of the group clinics at Alta, and was given free reign to run it once it was clear there would be participants. Unsure of the following the program would foster, the school managers were pleasantly surprised when almost every clinic was full in its first season.