The Remarkable Story Of Telluride Bootfitter Sam Tischendorf
Before I headed to Telluride for a March 2023 ski trip, Allison Kozar, bootfitter at Inner Bootworks in Stowe, suggested I get to know Sam Tischendorf, master bootfitter at Telluride's venerable Bootdoctors. So when I got to town, I went into the shop, introduced myself, and ended up meeting Tischendorf for coffee at the local bookstore cafe.
Tischendorf’s background is different from Leslie Baker-Brown and Kozar’s, who both hail from skiing families. Tischendorf was born in South Africa into a family of individuals highly accomplished in different areas. Her great-grandmother was South Africa's first woman attorney, her father was an ultra-marathon runner, and her sister is an open-water ocean swimmer whose feats are in the Guinness World Record book. None of them skied.
When Tischendorf was young, the family emigrated to Australia. She was a shy child who liked ballet and art and, as a teenager, field hockey until hip pain drove her to a podiatrist for treatment. That experience sold her on the field. She studied podiatry at university and later worked with athletes and non-athletes alike, and with a footwear brand. "Podiatry taps into the problem-solving part of the brain,” she says. “It's fun to figure out what's going on with the body and how to help."
Skiing wasn't part of Tischendorf’s life until she had graduated from university, but then she took off for Canada and learned to ski at Sunshine Village in Banff. Both there and in Fernie, she fell in love with the camaraderie and the lifestyle. “A lot of my friends are into ski racing or big mountain skiing. That's fine for them but I have a different perspective,” she says. “My goal is to ski, have fun and to giggle."
Then came the challenge of figuring out how to combine her professional work with the skiing lifestyle. Enter Telluride's Bootdoctors, founded by renowned bootfitter Bob Gleason. Tischendorf learned from Gleason, dealing with a few employees who weren't ready to accept a blond Aussie woman as one of them, and honed her skills to a new level. More than a decade later, she's still with the company. Skiing, of course, is central to her work, but her real passion is podiatry. "I enjoy keeping up with the latest in biomechanics and footwear design. It keeps the brain alive. I like to bring my inner nerd to the ski industry," she says.
The challenges of living in a stunningly beautiful mountain town like Telluride, Colorado don't escape Tischendorf, but she makes it work.
Photo: Maggie Kaiserman
Like Kozar, Tischendorf encounters customers who want their bootfitter to be a guy. "I was expecting a man," she sometimes hears. "I'll wait until someone else frees up." It used to bother her, but now she's too busy to care. Tischendorf has expertise and also the manner to ease any residual awkwardness. She uses precise vocabulary, asks the right questions and proposes solutions. Comfortable feet can win over even the crankiest character.
Now, with a national reputation, Tischendorf doesn't have to worry about her personal trajectory as a bootfitter. But she does worry about the future of ski towns like Telluride, where the price of housing has put a squeeze on many service workers. “A lot of people need a second job to live in a ski town. And let's face it, customer service jobs are difficult. Customers can be demanding. There's an art and craft to bootfitting. Not everyone can learn or wants to,” she says. In mountain towns, waiting tables can often be more lucrative.
We all know there's a bigger conversation to be had about wage scales, housing costs, corporate ownership of ski resorts, climate change and more. But for now, this is Tischendorf’s path and she intends to pass on what she's learned to other aspiring bootfitters. One way she does that is by giving Masterfit classes at locations across the country which brings other bootfitters like Kozar into her orbit. She says, "I teach people to fit a boot, build a foot bed and, just as importantly, the way to talk to people."
The ski terrain off Telluride's Gondola is the perfect place to test Tischendorf's boot fitting skills.
Photo: Visit Telluride
Tischendorf also attends the annual Professional Ski Instructors Association (PSIA) women's summit, where she talks to professional ski instructors about how to buy boots. And she participates in Tecnica's monthly zoom calls where she clues other women into the secrets of the trade.
I had a chance to observe Tischendorf in action at Telluride’s Bootdoctors when I went in for a boot adjustment. Tischendorf was already with a customer so she introduced me to her colleague Tory who expertly fixed my problem. But I was close enough to eavesdrop on Tischendorf’s conversation with a high school-aged boy there for a fitting. She asked what slopes he favored, the races he competed in and about his other activities. She had him stand in boots and move around, as though he were out on a course. By the end of the session, they were talking about his plans for the future. That's not a subject directly related to boots, but surely a way to get to know a customer. I could see why she is asked to teach the skill of talking to customers.
While my own family experience was more similar to Baker Brown and Kozar’s, there was something I felt Tischendorf and I shared. My mother's bad back kept her sidelined from skiing but she made the sport possible for the rest of us. The family would spend winter vacations in New Hampshire or Vermont, with my father and the kids on the mountain and my mother in the lodge, reading, knitting and making new friends. When we came inside, usually cold and snow-covered, she was there, ready to hand out the lunch she had packed and share her enthusiasm for a sport she would never try herself.
Tischendorf had mentioned her family when we met but then we moved on to talking about boots. Later, though, as I considered her path through the ski industry, I realized her family members must have been very influential, even if they weren't skiers themselves. Her great-grandmother studied law in South Africa when racial apartheid was in full bloom, as was discrimination against women. The only woman in her university class, she qualified to complete the required law articles, until the authorities canceled her certification because she was a woman. When the legislature later removed the prohibition on women practicing law, she had to repeat her articles training. Finally, in 1926, she was sworn into the bar. Tischendorf says, "My great-grandmother worked for the greater good. She wrote speeches for black politicians, and when she died, her funeral was a heavy hitting event. I think there's something in the DNA that made me willing to push forward."
She also talked about her mother's influence: "When we got to Australia, Mom created a life for the family. Immigration can be traumatic, but she tried to ease that. Of course, as kids, we hate on our mothers the most, but they are the best. Moms are the best."
Her comment about mothers took me back to my own family when I was young. I finally put my finger on what felt similar in Tischendorf's experience–her mother easing the family's adjustment to a new experience so that her daughter could grow and take on new challenges.
