Danny "Irie" Walton learned how to telemark in the hills around Cleveland.
Cleveland?
"There were like 10 small hills I could string together," Walton said. "I could get about five turns, and then I'd hike back up and do laps."
Now he's entering his fourth season as the director of the Sun Valley Telemark Race Series, which at 27 years old is the longest continuously running tele series in the country.
"I moved out to Ketchum with a pair of telemark and Nordic skis and I got a job teaching alpine," Walton said.
That was 10 years ago. Now Walton is sponsored by Rossignol, Columbia, Scott USA, Scarpa and Ortovox. He's appeared on the cover of the Mountain Gazette and is pictured in the table of contents in the November 2006 issue of Ski magazine.
All this and he has never entered a major tele competition.
"It's just by my being an ambassador to the sport," he said. "I'm just involved with all aspects of teleing."
It doesn't hurt that he rips.
Walton's face will get more air time this winter on Resort Sports Network (RSN), where he'll offer "Danny's Irie tele tip of the day."
RSN is a national television network that highlights the country's top resorts. The network, which is often headlined by freeskiing pioneer Glen Plake, also features local flavor.
Walton said the network was hooked after they attended last year's Hawaiian Nationals, the final event in the Sun Valley Telemark Race Series.
The event, which is partly a race and mostly a party, drew 164 retro-clad, grass-skirt-toting telemarkers last year.
"They had a great time. They were impressed," Walton said about the RSN crew. "We put Glen Plake on some tele gear. He was really cool. Their producer was happy."
Walton took over direction of the Sun Valley Telemark Race Series in 2003.
"It just needed some new energy and youth," he said. "I have a lot of energy, so I volunteered to get it cranking."
In the last three years participation has increased by about 50 percent.
"We average 86 racers per event," he said. "This year my goal is to get over 100 people per event."
The series will feature five races this winter, beginning Jan. 7 on Bald Mountain with the all-terrain race, which includes bumps, a kicker, forested traverses and a series of gates.
"That was our least attended race of the year because people get all freaked out," Walton said. "But the people who do it get really psyched, throwing tele-helis and hiking through the woods.
"Once people come out and do it they'll do it every year."
Walton isn't surprised how much the event has grown.
"Baldy is just full of phenomenal telemarkers," he said. "People from other resorts don't know this about Sun Valley."
This year, Walton will try to attract more new recruits with the Northern Rockies Telemark Institute. Sponsored by Rossignol, the program will feature a series of free clinics on Bald Mountain for beginning telemarkers. Walton will instruct.
"It will be great because we can introduce new people to the sport and get them involved," he said. "This is a real good community, a good telemark community."
For more information, including a full list of events, visit sunvalleytele.org.
Danny Walton, director of the Sun Valley Telemark Race Series, frees his mind above Sun Valley.
