Next Level Skiing Mali Noyes is The Insatiable Skier
Welcome back to the Next Level Skiing podcast, brought to you by Wagner Skis. Salt Lake City skier Mali Noyes, in the spring of 2025, channeled her Nordic skiing roots and more than a decade of ski touring in Utah's Wasatch to set a new bar for swift steep skiing in the West. The 36-year-old skied all 93 lines detailed in Andrew McClean's seminal steep skiing bible "The Chuting Gallery. It took her only 47 days. An epic achievement. Listen in as Mali shares insights into how her Nordic skiing background fueled her exploration of backcountry steeps, pushing through mental fatigue, mentorship, and honing intuition in consequential avalanche terrain.
Topics:2:30 Growing up Nordic skiing in Sun Valley
3:30 Taking up alpine skiing with mom's boots after college
4:00 After three years of downhill skiing, joining the Freeride World Tour. "I crashed my way through … overwhelmed and scared."
4:50 Transitioning to backcountry with Nordic fitness, big-mountain skills, and "a love gf spending long days" in the mountains.
4:20 An "obsessive personality" and the Chuting Gallery project
5:20 The mindset of Nordic: finding weaknesses and improving
8:10 "I wonder how fast I could ski all them?"
10:30 Getting stronger with back-to-back-to-back days
12:0 The physical part was manageable. The mental part was the crux
13:30 A brief breakdown in Cottonwood Creek on Day 24
16:30 The spreadsheet motivator
17:40 Eight rest days in three months
18:30 Balancing objective-driven skiing with safety
19:30 The most in-depth book review of any book ever published
21:10 The mountains are horrible teachers
24:10 Mentorship in the backcountry
29:00 Vetting (and being vetted by) ski partners
31:20 Honing intuition in the backcountry
36:52 Best advice: dreaming big
Quotes:"You just get good when all you do is ski."
"On my rest days, I started binge watching, like, The White Lotus had just come out. So it was, like, ones that took my brain away from skiing because if I didn't distract myself, all I would do is think about what to ski."
"That spide-y sense feeling you get is through experience."
Resources: