Discussion: Telemark

Nice to see that our event has made an impression :-).

Brian, that was a great event in all respects, and that's the way it stands out in my mind. You guys did a really good job there.

I've heard second hand--and haven't checked it for myself--that since then Telemark (the lodge/resort) went bankrupt and has been shuttered, in a state of complete disrepair. It even seems I heard it was another case of a PE investment where the new owners bought the thing, immediately mortgaged out their investment, the place couldn't make the payments, and that rather than inject new money to keep it going, they defaulted. A real shame, if true.

Wikipedia indicates that it's been closed for the last four years after having gone through its fourth bankruptcy.

I remember very little from that meet other than that I was really sick.

I do not know the business details but can confirm the disrepair. It's at the start of the Birkie. In a couple of places the roof and balconies are collapsing.

That was about what I had heard.

I started doing the Birkie back in the Tony Wise days...when the Telemark complex was much larger and in full swing. The race went from South to North, and finished in front of the Lodge. The whole complex was a magical place that week, jammed with skiers and spectators. A fantastic XC experience!

BTW the NYTimes ran an excellent piece this week on the effects of Global Warming in the Northern Rockies with Yellowstone as a test lab. Very sobering:

....Warmer temperatures have allowed a native pest, the mountain pine beetle, to better survive winter, move into high elevations and have a longer reproductive season. In the last 30 years, an estimated 80 percent of the whitebark pines have died....For want of the whitebark pine, a great deal could be lost. The trees are a foundation species, meaning they play a central role in the structure of the ecosystem. They colonize exposed mountain sites, allowing other plants to get a root-hold. Their wide canopies protect snowpack from the sun. They are also a keystone species. They provide food for birds like the Clark’s nutcracker, which, in turn, create whitebark pine nurseries by caching nuts. And they are an important food source for squirrels, foxes, and grizzlies. The loss of the pines has far-reaching implications for the entire ecosystem...