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Tor Stetson-Lee

Tele Skier

Fall, 2005-- So I'm busy doing my job, shooting pictures for Telemarktips at last year at the awards ceremony/dinner party, after the final day of the 9th Annual U.S. Extreme Freeskiing Telemark Championships held at Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado.

This dude with a sun burned face and the classic skier's reverse-Raccoon eyes walks up and introduces himself. I recognized him as the guy who had just been awarded some prizes for finishing in the top ten, out of nearly 100 competitors. Shaking my hand he says, "my name is Tor and I have something I really want to tell you." I put down my camera and said, "what's up?"

"My name is Tor Stetson-Lee, I'm from Durango, Colorado, and a couple of years ago I was an exchange student living in South America. I've been skiing and Nordic racing since doe a few years and I was missing the snow."

"One late night I was surfing the web and I found Telemarktips. I read an article and watched a video from the tele freeskiing competition at Alpine Meadows that year. I thought, 'wow, I could learn to do that,' and look at me now, I'm on the podium here in Crested Butte."

Tor said he read everything he could find on our site and plunged right in, determined to ski tele at the highest level in the shortest amount of time possible.

It was really obvious to me that this guy was really happy to be standing on the podium with some of the best tele skiers in the world, guys like Dylan Crossman and Scott Barady, but what really struck me most was how totally stoked Tor was on the sport.

In six full seasons of publishing Telemarktips -- the Telemark and Backcountry Skiing Online Magazine, hearing his story was one of the best things that has happened to me.-- Mitch Weber


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