February, 2007-- Last winter, Big Tim and I travelled north to Bear Valley, California, to pay our first ever visit to the Bear Valley Telemark Festival, a multi-day event that is the largest of its kind out here in Cali, and maybe the biggest tele festival in the western U.S.

At Bear Valley the major focus during the daytime is on instruction. Twenty of the top tele instructors in the country, including our own Urmas Franosch, provided lessons and ran clinics for festival goers of all levels. The PSIA Nordic Demo team was in attendance and attendees had the opportunity to ski with the pros throughout the weekend.

PSIA Level III instructor, Far West Nordic Examiner, and former longtime PSIA tele demo team member Urmas Franosch makes a point to a group of students during a mogul clinic at Bear Valley.

Babes in the Backcountry founder Leslie Ross (far right) getting set to take one of her enthusiastic groups out for a clinic.

Tele film star and major shredder Mark Sanders (far right) gets a group together before heading out to conduct a clinic in his own unique style.

The festival was organized around a series of workshops and clinics over the course of the three days, with fun races, a beacon "Olympics," a costume parade, a guided backcountry ski tour, and of course gear demos, added into the mix. There was a little something for everybody, and all of the events were heavily attended by an enthusiastic mix of freeheel skiers, young and old alike.

Gear demos were provided courtesy of Black Diamond, G3, Rossignol, Atomic, Crispi, etc.

On Saturday night, Aaron and Kimi, along with a lot of help from a dedicated crew of staff and volunteers, threw one of the great freeheel parties in the world of telemark skiing. Lots of good food and and flowing beer and wine preceded a slide show and a huge raffle. Lots of skis, bindings, ski apparel and other quality schwag was passed out before everybody pitched in to move the the tables and chairs aside in order to make room for the live music and dancing. Albino, a "world music" type band, entertained the crowd and provided some really cool beats for dozens of dancers who partied late into the night. It was an awesome bash.

With dinner over and the beer drinking in full swing, the slide show and raffle is about to begin. That's Couloir publisher Craig Dostie standing (in the gray T-shirt), with a brew in hand, on the left.

Winning stuff rules, and there were a lot of thoroughly stoked people during the raffle... then Albino came on and rocked the house.

Even after two long days of charging around the mountain, and with another still to go, a core group of never say die types kept dancing right up until the end of the excellent band's long, final set.

After ten years, MAS would appear to have learned a few things about running a tele festival. On our visit last year the Bear Valley Telemark Festival was firing on all cylinders. It was well organized and pretty much flawlessly executed. Clinics and workshops began on time and there seemed to be plenty of everything for the large crowd: from instructors during the day to the food and beer on Saturday night. The banquet was especially impressive in this regard, two or three hundred people it seemed were fed quickly in a highly organized way that had BT and I shaking our heads and saying, "these guys have it going on." Even better, MAS somehow managed to keep everything running super smoothly, while the festival itself had more of a spontaneous party/celebration vibe. It was very cool.

The Bear Valley Telemark Festival has been taking place every year in early February. Go if you can. It was on our short list of tele things we really wanted to do and our visit exceeded our expectations in every way.

This year's festival begins Friday, February ninth, and continues through Sunday, the eleventh. Visit the MAS website at mtadventure.com for more information.