Mali Noyes is in a laundromat in Valdez, AK, waiting for her clothes to dry. She punches out a quick email while she has service. “Yesterday it was cloudy and overcast, so we just booted couloirs for nine hours as we get ready to go into the biggest expedition of my life,” she writes.
“I’m nervous! But doing the preparation that is needed.”

It’s late March 2024, and Noyes is living with a group of Canadians in a trailer with a wood stove in a parking lot on nearby Thompson Pass. It’s the simple skier’s life: no showers, eating noodles and beans, refilling water jugs in town and collecting dead trees for firewood.

“We get back to camp tired, hungry, and jazzed on a full day of mountain exploring and skiing,” she writes. “We are overwhelmed with options while simultaneously always planning and scheming what to ski next, all while laughing about being pirates and never being too serious.”

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