Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)
WHEN four friends set up Telemark in 1991 they were only the fourth skiing school in the Sierra Nevada.
Some three decades on they count on 21 teachers, five admin staff and well over 100 years of experience of teaching on the slopes.
“It’s great to have made it this far,” explains Luis Casanove, one of the resort’s true village elders.
“What a different world it was back then with so few schools.”
He continues: “We wanted to be the pioneers of the new world offering a much more private, personalised service and doing it in various languages.”
English, in particular, was a key requirement for the team (and still is) and among their first clients were various British expats from Marbella, as well as many Scandinavians and Portuguese.
The name of the company comes from the style of skiing known as ‘telemarking’.
This can be seen in a photo on the wall of the company… a grainy black and white picture of Luis’s grandfather skiing in 1912 in the Guadarrama mountains near Madrid.
“Telemark skiing was the original way before Alpine skiing became more fashionable later in the century,” he explains.
Be it hiking, telemarking, cross country, snowboarding or off-piste skiing, there are not many inches of the Sierra Nevada that Luis and his business partner Jesus Fernandez don’t know.
They can arrange everything from accommodation to ski passes and are well known for their famous off-piste mountain adventures that last from a morning to two days.
“Our knowledge and know-how is ideal for families who want the perfect personal one to one break,” he adds.
The company also runs amazing wilderness trips that literally end up in another world… the charming cobbled villages of the Genil valley, in the Alpujarras.
These one or two-day adventures take you through deep off-piste snow onto narrow mountain tracks.
Another popular pastime for those who don’t fancy risking life and limb on the pistes, is to have a day of cross-country skiing on two or three well established paths around the resort.
“It is great fitness and you do get to enjoy the fabulous views and nature at the same time,” he adds.
The company can also help organise hard-core uphill climbing for mountaineers to a half day soft snow walking trip with snow rackets.
Visit the website, and contact the team on telemark@telemark.es or call 958 48 11 53.
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