Meet Noah Dines, the Guy Trying to Ski the Most Vertical Feet in a Year (Without Lifts)

This northern-hemi winter may have seen an Average Joe lock up a skiing world record, reportedly covering more than seven million vertical feet. That record is going to belong to Utah’s Tom Hart, aka Racer Tom around Snowbasin. When he reached his mark, he’d been arriving at Snowbasin by 7:30 am every day and ready for first chair. He’d average around 40 runs and was off the hill after last chair at 4 pm. Every day. When it’s all said and done, if all those runs are verified and were logged according to the Guinness Book of Records‘ protocol, Hart will hold the record for the most vertical feet skied in a season.

Meanwhile, a young skier on the other side of the U.S. has been plugging away at another record: the most vertical feet covered, only this record requires every run to be completed without a single chair ride. Noah Dine of Stowe, Vermont, is currently more than halfway to skiing more over three million vertical feet — the record for skiing the most human powered vertical feet — since January 1. Reaching and beating the record requires Dine to average climbing 9,090 vertical feet daily over the 330 days he planned to ski in 2024. When Dines spoke to the old ski shop he worked at last season in early April, he said he’d  “only had one blister to deal with so far and that came with skiing 15,000 feet in one day.” He’d taken three days off by that point.

Like Hart, Dine has a daily routine in order to clock enough vertical.

“Each day I wake up at 6:30 or 7 a.m., then I eat a few bananas and three to five eggs for breakfast along with some coffee,” he said. “Then it’s skiing from 9 a.m. till 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  During this time I drink water mixed with PLINK tablets and an espresso or two for an extra caffeine boost. I usually take a pastry with me for snacking and some of my favorite candies of choice, usually HARIBOS.  Once I get back home, I want to stay off my feet as much as possible and try to get horizontal to allow for good blood flow and rest,” adding that there’s also a trip to the grocery store most days in order to stay fueled for the next.

Unlike Hart’s record-breaking year in Utah so far, Dine has already logged some air miles. He started the year on his home turf in Stowe but has since moved on to Europe and now back to the States where he’s spring skiing in the Rockies and other mountain ranges throughout the West. According to Snowbrains, Dine will be going to South America when the Northern Hemisphere summer is underway. Then, as the year wraps up, he plans to be back home in Vermont where he can (hopefully) celebrate a record-setting 2o24 with family and friends.

That’ll be a helluva year to look back on.

The post Meet Noah Dines, the Guy Trying to Ski the Most Vertical Feet in a Year (Without Lifts) first appeared on The Inertia.