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Gallup spreads telemarking word with skiing, movies

Richard Chittick
Pete Gallup skis down Vail Pass last season. A Breckenridge resident, Gallup has risen to become one of the best telemark skiers in the country, and spends every waking moment trying to promote the sport.
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BRECKENRIDGE – Pete Gallup is in heaven right now. The 30-year-old Breckenridge resident has become one of the top professional telemark skiers in the country and, in his mind, there is nowhere to go but up.

Gallup stars in “CORE: Total Telemark III,” which is showing at Barkley’s on Friday and the Dillon Dam Brewery on Dec. 11.

After growing up on alpine skies, Gallup didn’t even think about skiing free-heel until 1995, when he was a competitive bump skier for Western State College in Gunnison.



As a light-hearted joke one day, he showed up for practice at Crested Butte on a tele setup he borrowed from a friend.

“When you’re skiing bumps alpine style on a pair of tele skis,” he said, “you learn really quick when you’re balance is off.”



He quickly got addicted to the sport, partly because of its uniqueness and partly because of the laid-back attitude he found pervaded the industry.

Whether it was skinning up a backcountry peak or just wandering around in the woods with his dogs, he absolutely loves it.

“Everybody knows my dogs,” he said, especially Kickstand, his three-legged pup that makes several appearances in “CORE.”

These days, his biggest goal is to build support for the free-heel world.

“I see more and more telemark skiers out every year,” he said. “It’s so cool to see these younger kids going out and stepping up.”

From endorsing a promotional giveaway on

http://www.telemarkskier.com to appearing in magazines and videos, Gallup is doing everything he can to make the sport more visible.

He skis everywhere, whether it’s on a remote backcountry route or just the double-black diamond line in the Copper Mountain terrain park. He is also a signature athlete with Karhu, one of the telemark industry’s leading producers.

Karhu is also the title sponsor of “CORE.”

“I have a sales and marketing background, and I’m helping kids get sponsored,” he said.

“What we’re trying to do is get the younger generation excited about telemarking.”

Gallup went pro as a free-heel skier four years ago, but his road to professional stardom began before he could walk.

“My dad was on ski patrol my whole life,” he said about growing up in New Hampshire.

“He has this video where he basically straps me into these little skis.

“That had a big influence on me.”

He has appeared in all three of the “Total Telemark” movies.

He can also be found in an abstract image on the cover of the most recent edition of Mountain Gazette, a bi-monthly publication based out of Frisco that reports on the entire Rocky Mountain region.

He also works as a marketing consultant for the local radio station KSMT, “The Mountain.”

Richard Chittick can be reached at (970) 668-3998, ext. 236, or at

rchittick@summitdaily.com.


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