How do you describe telemarking?

Telemark turns--you ski like a girl!  Skiing Like a Girl!

I was lift skiing at Vail about 5 years ago with a friend and we were both telemarking. While waiting to get on the lift, my friend mentioned his knee was starting to bother him. The guy behind us heard the comment and decided to chime in, "That's why I don't telemark heh heh heh." We looked at his smart arse grin, kind of confused, and got on the chair, shrugging it off. Shortly after loading, the lift slowed down. We turned around and saw guy had fallen while getting on the next chair. HAHAHAH, we laughed the entire ride up!

For the most part, I only tele in pow these days and transition to AT when corn season arrives mostly because ski crampons for Dynafit are much nicer when the surface is still frozen in the morning. I would describe telemark as a dance that feels elegant, graceful, smooth, and very satisfying as demonstrated by the following photo:

Especially for Lowell .... Deconstructing and Reconstructing Varieties of the Telemark Turn

That's a nice demonstration video. My only complaint is that it was shot entirely on a groomed slope. So we never get to see the skier turning in soft, natural snow. He doesn't really need to carve a turn. There's a lot of skidding in the video.

The desire to ski natural snow on light, 70mm(-ish) skis is what drove the telemark renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s. Most people have forgotten how hard it is to ski natural snow on old-school equipment. It has been made simple by fat skis. Today we don't ski in the snow as much as we ski on top of it. Need to check your speed or avoid an obstacle? Just pivot and smear.

It didn't used to be that way. Alpine skiing in the backcountry used to be hard. That's why telemarking was popular.

Easy to say.  Typical "big boy" AT: Marker Duke, 4-Buckle Cochise boot, and 120 mm waist ski = 20+ lbs.
                    Old school "big boy" tele: 3-pin or 3-pin cable,  brown Karhu Outbound (90-70-890), & Super comps = <<20 lbs.
                    New school "big boy" tele probably still less the the big boy AT.

light weight option:  3-pin vs Dynafit, 3 pin is less;  Cho Oyu, the same; boot TLT6 vs Old 3 buckle blue T-2s, 6s win.  Overal weight the same.

I skied NNN, NNN-BC,  SNS-BC, 3 pins, 3-pin cables, 3-pin hardwires, Riva cables, beta tester for Hammerheads, 7tm releaseables, used the oil voile releaseables with 3-pin cables, ultimate telemark binding, and the free pivot hardwires and always came back to 3-pins    but now I use Dynafit speeds on XCountry ski patrol!

But you are right: no release on a 3 pin (but maybe less danger of massive damage to MCL, tib-fib, ACL etc. cuz the pins on AT don't release--have to release from the heel.  Still safer, much less likely to fall for sure.  And the big deal to me is on the up: no weight on the heel, no flexing of the boot bellows, free pivot--AT rules.

Been skiing the similar range -- but some of those comparisons are apples to oranges. On a comparable setup - fat skis with the bindings and boot to drive it AT comes way ahead on weight. Folks skiing the same ski as me (tele 4 buckle) but with Dynafit speeds were at least 4 lbs lighter -

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The desire to ski natural snow on light, 70mm(-ish) skis is what drove the telemark renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s. Most people have forgotten how hard it is to ski natural snow on old-school equipment. It has been made simple by fat skis. Today we don't ski in the snow as much as we ski on top of it. Need to check your speed or avoid an obstacle? Just pivot and smear.

It didn't used to be that way. Alpine skiing in the backcountry used to be hard. That's why telemarking was popular.

I was so happy when Regine and I got to move from 60ish mm waist skis to 70 mm! Them was fat! My were Tua Excaliburs, hers were Kneissel Tourstar Ultras (carbon and Kevlar) both with Rainey superloops.