Behind the Line: Noah Gaffney Goes Wicked Fast in Argentina
At Argentina’s Las Leñas ski resort, there’s a little lift you may have heard of: Marte.
Humble in stature but legendary in terrain access, the two-seater, which is often closed, drops visitors atop a collection of lines that would make any extreme skiing hound blush. This is real deal skiing. And, thanks to Marte, you can lap it on the right day.
During a trip south of the equator, Tahoe local and member of the Gaffney ski clan, Noah, took full advantage—not only of Marte, but of the oodles of fresh snow that have piled up in Argentina and Chile this austral winter.
With a hectic and high-speed line off the lift, Noah did nothing to dispel his reputation as one of freeride’s quickest skiers. Blink, and you might miss him.
Check out the line below and keep reading for some Argentine intel from Noah. Tap or click to watch.
The Lift: “Marte is one of the best lifts to ski in the world,” Noah told POWDER in an email. But when it’s open, he added, “it’s not always the best snow. There can be a lot of wind effect that makes it tricky to ski most days.” The day he skied this line was different, though.
“We had gotten a foot of snow 2 nights before with only a little wind effect. It ended up skiing great!” he wrote. You know what that means: “You could open it up and go fast without hitting any funky spots in the snow,” said Noah. “It was just one big line after another in powder, a rare day for the Marte.”
The Line: Noah rode up Marte with Spanish freerider Abel Moga.
“Abel and I made our way down to the zone, but at one point we ended up traversing too low and had to sidestep up,” he wrote. “Another guy ended up passing us and going to the other couloir I had planned, so I had to revert plans again.”
“I quickly remembered a variation of the couloir Abel and I had lined up that Connery Lundin had skied the last time we came down here,” explained Gaffney.
He knew where to go because he’d been studying the face as he made daily laps on the lift below over the past week. The line, called Doble Salt in Catalan, translates to “double jump,” nodding to a double stager at the end. There was so much snow, though, that there was now one cliff.
Photo: Adam Clark/Getty Images
The Fear Factor: Watching Noah’s video, the line looks like a labyrinthine, high-risk rock maze. It wasn’t “too bad to navigate,” though, according to him. This is how he did it.
“After dropping into the couloir, I aimed for the chute on the right-hand side. The next step was to follow the big cliff wall on my left till the tight, fall line exit of the couloir was directly below me,” he wrote. “Finally, I lined up the cliff at the end of the couloir and came flying out the bottom!”
What about the nerves, though? Noah’s are clearly steely, but careening past rocks that, even if you ask nicely, won’t get out of your way, has the potential to get the pulse racing. The fear factor was mellow compared to a sizable drop, though, said Noah (he’s also plenty familiar with going huge, in case you were wondering).
“This style of skiing is right in my comfort zone. I’d rate my nerves at a 3/10, whereas a big cliff huck they’ll be around a 7/10-8/10,” he wrote.
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