Kid is living the dream. Photos: Courtesy Noah Avallone
Noah Avallone is a member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Team for Rookie Halfpipe and is headed to Korea this season to ride in the 2024 Youth Olympics. A New York City native, Avallone has balanced a hectic life of traveling between the mountains and the ocean to score podiums in both surfing and snowboarding. He’s a four-time national snowboarding champion, a two-time winner of the Gold Duct Tape contest at Washington’s Mount Baker, and just flew in from Switzerland where he was training with the U.S. Snowboard Rookie Team. I caught up with Noah to ask him what life is like traveling the world, training hard, and living the dream of most of us adults.
What is a typical day like at one of these training camps like the one your were just at in Saas-Fee?
In Saas-Fee, we would wake up, head to the first tram, wait in a line, go up, hop on another tram, get in another line, and work our way through the mosh pit of ski racers to the train in a tunnel. Then we’d ride pipe all morning and free ride if there was fresh snow or it was windy. The down days were super fun too. One day we surfed at Alaia Bay, the wave pool about an hour away. That was so sick.
How has life been otherwise?
It’s been a hectic couple of months. I started back up at school full time after Labor Day; I go to Stratton Mountain School in Vermont. It was a bit of a culture shock being in the mountains again, and having to make the six-hour trek back to Montauk a couple times for some epic swells.
Where is your home mountain right now?
Since I go to Stratton Mountain School, Stratton is home, but we go to Carinthia at Mount Snow mostly ’cause they have better parks. I started going to Stratton Mountain School about four years ago. I started off in winter term, and then I just stayed for spring because it was during COVID. Now, I go there for the full term (September to June). I live there pretty much, but I try to come back to the city on the weekends or in Montauk to go surf whenever I can.
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Wow, that’s crazy. Do you have a lot of friends still in Montauk or you just love to surf?
I have so many homies there. It’s nice coming back from the trips and just being able to go hang with them.
Does it ever feel weird ’cause like you have such a hectic life and then all of your friends from early childhood are still like living in New York?
Yeah, I guess it’s a little weird, but I get the best of both worlds. I get to go travel and have a good time with my snowboard friends and I come home and see my surfing friends.
You’re going to the Youth Olympic Games in Korea. You’ve said you didn’t even really know about the Youth Olympic games until 2016. Can you talk a little bit about how you got interested in that?
A couple older kids from Stratton Mountain School went, I was like, “hopefully one day I can go there.” For the past two years I’d been thinking about it. This summer we were supposed to go to New Zealand for the Junior World Championships in Halfpipe. Unfortunately, it ended up getting canceled and I would’ve had to do really well in that contest to maintain qualification for the Youth Olympic Games in Korea. But when that got canceled, I remained in qualification, so I automatically get that invite now.
You’ve had a really unconventional upbringing and I know you’re pretty close with your family, especially your dad. Did your dad push you into doing mountain and surf sports or was that just something you were interested in?
Yeah, he used to skate a bunch and then got into snowboarding after seeing it in Thrasher magazine. Then, he got into surfing about five years after. I started skating, snowboarding, then surfing. Being around him and watching him do it, I started loving it. We started competing together in Boardercross when I was six.
Oh wow, that’s so sick.
We went to Nationals that first year and we just did BX. and then after that it was just like, “snowboarding’s super fun, let’s keep doing it.” My mom and sisters would do it with us too. It was a family thing for sure.
Besides your family, who do you look up to the most or is there anyone in your life that has really supported you up to this point?
My coach Ross Powers. He won gold in the 2002 Olympics and now he’s the head snowboard coach at SMS. He’s been with me this whole time, ever since I’ve been going to school there. He’s been a big inspiration for what I’m trying to do. He used to be a style master and go huge, so I’m trying to get some influence from him.
You’re from the East Coast, which is a rare place to be from to get really good at snowboarding. Do you feel a certain affinity for the East Coast, and do you feel like you have to rep that extra hard when you go to these other places?
Yeah, kind of, because all these other kids will complain about icy conditions in Pipe and I’ll be just stoked that I’m riding a proper pipe. We don’t have them at home anymore. The East Coast used to be like such a big place for snowboarding and that’s where it originated, and now it’s like, we don’t have anything really big anymore. We just have some jumps and some rails. We don’t have a pipe, except for some smaller ones, barely. When I travel, I just try and make the most of it.
So, your favorite event is really Banked Slalom at Mount Baker? I’m so surprised that’s your favorite, I was expecting halfpipe or something.
It’s definitely the most fun. Everybody’s there, like every type of pro in snowboarding, not just halfpipe riders, there’s like people that ride rails that do it, too. It’s a different type of scene and they’re making food at the top. The vibes are just amazing. That mountain’s really cool, and it has so much history in snowboarding.
Grassroot events like local banked slaloms, and Homesick at my local mountain, Stratton, and Last Call in Loon, NH, and the World Quarterpipe Championships sponsored by Slush magazine, brings together the camaraderie of the community and competitive spirit out in full force.
On the topic of riding for fun, do you ever mess around with your friends outside of training, doing street snowboarding or anything like that? Or are you pretty restricted and you don’t have a lot of free time to mess around on a board?
Definitely, whenever I can. On the East Coast, it’s hard to get snow to be able to go ride street. But whenever I have time and it’s possible, I’m so down to go in the streets and film a video part, which is a big goal for me too. I have so many skier friends at school, too, ‘cause at SMS there are alpine racing and freeskiers. So, I have a bunch of friends that are freeskiers, and some of them are into street skiing.
Do you have a favorite edit right now? Or what are the youth watching these days?
Burton just dropped a new project called Bloom with a lot of dope riders: Luke Winkleman and Zeb Powell were in it, and they’re popping off. It was sick to watch!
That’s cool. I’ll have to check that out.
Yeah, it’s cool they‘re starting to do lots of videos again. I feel like they stopped for a little bit and now they’re starting to come back with them. Quiksilver also dropped a pretty cool backcountry and street edit the other day too.
Speaking of Quiksilver, you’re a pretty good surfer. How do you balance both of those? I mean, I know you get that question all the time, but it’s pretty impressive. You have so much going on with both of those things.
I don’t really get to surf in the winters much anymore because of the hectic snowboard schedule. But during the summer I just surf as much as possible. We have a good wave at home for longboarding. Whenever it’s pumping, I love shortboarding the bigger waves we do get. I’m just stoked on my quiver for all waves.
Do you prefer logging or shortboarding?
I prefer logging because you have a little more freedom. In snowboarding, you have your bindings, you’re in one spot the whole day, but with a longboard you could walk to the nose and it’s more free, you can move around on the board and get creative.
Yeah, totally. You were talking about like Mexi Log Fest, so you’ve already gone to that a couple of times?
No, I haven’t gone to that one yet, I was invited last year, but it conflicted with a snowboard camp with the U.S. team. I’ve been to other longboard competitions like the USA Surfing Championships, where I won my first Surfing National Championship. And USA Primes, East Coast Surfing Championships and Easterns, and I’ve won or done pretty well in those. But yeah, Mexi Log Fest, I think we’re trying to make it happen this year.
Traveling so much, so young, you must have some crazy travel stories.
Yeah, definitely. Once, I was traveling with my SMS teammates, and we were in Mammoth competing in those Rev tours. We were going to Calgary, Canada next for the NORAM Freestyles Nationals. My friend is a little bit older, and he has an enhanced driver’s license, so he didn’t bring his passport; he didn’t think he needed it because he had gone from Vermont to Canada with it many times. We show up to the airport in Bishop, California. It’s probably like an hour away from Mammoth, but it’s in the middle of nowhere. They’re like “passport, please.” He gives them the enhanced ID, and it doesn’t work. They’re like, “how do we make this work?”
We stayed overnight in Bishop and then we got to snowboard the next day and then he goes to Newark, his dad gives him his passport and then he gets right back into the airport, and he meets us in Canada. This was all during COVID as well, so he had to test again, since it had to be within 24 hours. He barely got his results in time for the new flight!
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That sounds like a nightmare.
Yeah, it was fine though, ‘cause we got a really great day in Mammoth the next day and I ended up getting second at the event in Calgary!
That’s awesome. Do you have any other mountains that you’ve been really stoked on going to? I imagine you’ve been to so many, if you had to pick one, what’s your favorite?
Probably Laax, CH. Its super sick mountain in Switzerland. They have everything there. They had the small park which is super fun. And then the big jumps and the big pipe and a mini pipe. It’s an amusement park for snowboarding? It’s sick! We went there after the Junior World Championships, in Leysin, CH, and I entered the Kids Laax Open and won Slope and Pipe. It’s one of the largest events for groms in Europe.
That’s a really good attitude. Do you have anything that you’d want to share with other kids who want to do the stuff that you’re doing? I know people all over the world would be stoked on living the life that you live.
Yeah. I want everyone to know it’s possible to be from a city or a place far from the mountains or ocean and still get good by being consistent and passionate and willing to skate or do other sports to keep the stoke alive until you are in the mountains or the ocean again. Don’t take anything for granted and just push yourself as hard as you can. That’s the only way to do it. Just have fun and if you have a group of friends that love it too, and you’re doing it every day with them, that’s the best. Riding with your friends… it doesn’t get better than that.
