ASPEN — Two winters ago, they helped Aspen High School secure an eighth state skiing title. Now, Wiley Maple and Noah Hoffman are pursuing a much bigger prize.

They are a study in contrasts. Maple, the free-spirited 18-year-old alpine skier with a notable shock of untamed curly brown hair, exudes an air of nonchalance that belies his on-mountain persona, where he’s seemingly always in a hurry. Call his cell phone and Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” blares until he picks up. Seems fitting for an athlete who gave up hockey for steeper, faster swaths of ice.

Hoffman, the nordic prodigy, is methodical and, by his own admission, a tad eccentric. The 19-year-old approaches cross-country skiing with the discerning eye of a scientist peering through a microscope. He constantly scrutinizes every race, every training session, every detail — sometimes months in advance. A former Academic All-State first-team selection and Ivy League prospect with an affinity for math and science, Hoffman put Dartmouth on hold to pursue a different type of education.

Both share the same goal, however: To build successful and sustainable careers at the highest level of their respective sports. The duo cleared a monumental hurdle in May, when they were named to the U.S. Ski Team.

Both said the nine months since have been quite a learning experience. Both said they are enjoying the ride and plying their skills in locales across the United States, Europe and beyond.

Their journeys are just beginning.

Uncharted territory

Maple was uneasy.

In years past, he had been one of the youngsters sprawled out on the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club carpet while listening to guest speakers. He had never been the one standing at the front of the room, commanding all the attention — until late December’s Christmas Speed Camp.

“I definitely have never done something like this, talked about myself,” Maple told The Aspen Times then. “… I was a little nervous up there.”

The AVSC alum fielded questions from about 30 eager 9- to 12-year-olds for nearly 45 minutes. They wanted to know about his nutrition and training regimens. They wanted to know about the unusual necklace he was wearing (Maple won it in an arcade crane game at Walmart).

They wanted to know how things had changed now that he had been named to the U.S. Ski Team’s Development squad.

His answer is still evolving.

“It’s been a surreal flip,” Maple said last week as he drove to Denver to catch a flight to Atlanta, then one to Germany to compete in his second World Junior Championships. “I still can’t believe it. … When I was just a little younger, I was dreaming about making the U.S. Ski Team and looking up and saying ‘Oh God, there’s Bode and Ted Ligety.’ Now, those guys are good friends. They’re the same as me. They’re out there having fun and working hard.”

Maple spent time with his boyhood idols in October after moving into a condo in Park City, Utah. He went to a Utah Jazz game with Ligety and Steve Nyman. He barbecued in the park with teammates. He spent long days in the gym with the ski team’s mainstays — draining four- to five-hour workouts that Maple jokingly refers to as “the most awful thing I’ve experienced in my life.”

They played soccer, badminton, tennis and tossed the football. Sometimes, they set up obstacle courses as part of their cross-training regimen.

“I got to see all the top guys training. … There were all these trainers there to help us get better,” Maple said. “It gave me an idea of what I need to do to be successful.”

Subsequent training has been arduous and has taken some getting used to, Maple said. Days often begin with a 5 a.m. wake-up call, a run and a stretch before a full day of on-snow activity.

The teenager relishes his rare opportunities to return home — to help his mom cook, ski powder with old friends and eat some pancakes, eggs and bacon (the croissants and cheese he routinely eats in Europe hardly qualifies as a real breakfast, he joked).

It is refreshing to be a “normal kid” again, if only for a few fleeting moments, he said.

“I’m pretty lazy when I’m home — I sleep until 10,” Maple added. “I feel like I’m never home long enough. Sometimes I come home and don’t even unpack. I sleep in my bed, throw my bag in the car and drive back to the airport.”

The busy schedule has had its perks, too. This season alone, the 2007 J2 Junior National champion has been to Chile, British Columbia and Italy. He even served as a forerunner at Beaver Creek’s Birds of Prey downhill course before December’s World Cup race.

“I was scared out of my mind sitting in that start gate for the first time,” he remembered. “After I did it, I said, ‘Get me to the top so I can do that again.’”

He also experienced Europe’s fervor for the sport first-hand while attending a night slalom in Austria. He likened the experience to being at a football game — fans stood in serpentine hot dog lines and kids clamored for autographs and pictures with athletes.

“Everybody looks at skiing differently over there,” He said. “There are billboards of Hermann Maier everywhere, and little kids in ski groups are wearing speed suits and freeskiing behind their instructors. Shops don’t have shaped skis or twin tips or snowboards, they have Atomic race skis, curved poles and suits. … They’re way more into it. It’s a lot different.”

But it’s something he hopes to experience often should he become a regular on the World Cup circuit.

Maple’s talents have yielded strong results this winter. He took ninth in super G at a NorAm in British Columbia in December, and matched that result at Mammoth Mountain on Feb. 11. All told, he has logged five top-15 finishes on the NorAm and International Ski Federation (FIS) circuits.

Coaches have been impressed with the young skier’s progression, Maple said, but consistency is still a constant struggle.

“They like how disciplined I am,” he added. “I’m progressing in a lot of ways, but there’s still a lot of little things I need to work on, obviously. … last year, my best result in a NorAm was 15th. Now, if I get out of the top 10, I’m pretty disappointed.

“I just keep trying to improve every single year.”

He’s hoping to take that next step in Garmisch Partenkirchen in early March — his second World Junior Championships appearance in as many years. Maple finished 15th in super G and 25th in downhill last year in Formigal, Spain.

A victory would guarantee him at least one World Cup start next season.

“I think I have a chance to get a top five,” Maple said. “If I ski the way I know I can, that’s definitely possible. … The goal right now is to go in there focused and do what I know how.”

Face to face with adversity

Hoffman is confronting unfamiliar circumstances these days.

While the nordic season progressed, Hoffman sat on his hands for much of February. After a string of what he deems “less-than-desirable performances,” coaches decided it was best to rest the former AVSC standout for an extended period.

“I don’t want to say over-trained, but overdone is what we say,” Hoffman said recently in a Skype call from Sun Valley, Idaho, where he’s living with fellow Olympic Development Team member Michael Sinnott and his family. “It’s really hard to pinpoint the time and place when I was overdoing it, but it could be as far back as August.

“I’m a little discouraged right now. There’s still racing to come this year … but I feel like I need to get things turned around a little bit.”

The nation’s top junior nordic skier, Hoffman burst onto the scene in 2008. He picked up wins in FIS races in Winter Park and Crested Butte, then blew away the field when he debuted in the Owl Creek Chase from Snowmass Village to Aspen.

His selection to the U.S. Ski Team’s nordic B squad was exciting, but hardly unexpected.

Subsequently, new doors were opened. Hoffman was soon working with physiologists in Park City, where his fitness levels were charted, his blood was drawn and analyzed, and his diet calibrated.

During the summer, he attended team camps in Oregon. He was in British Columbia in September, then Lake Placid, N.Y., for two weeks in October. There, he experienced his first 5-hour roller ski training session with standout distance skier Kris Freeman of Andover, N.H.

“Experiences like that, getting to work with other athletes and go to camps, getting to work with the coaches is incredible,” Hoffman said. “I am very fortunate.”

Hoffman was hoping that consulting with the sport’s professionals and putting in the hard work would translate into success. What has transpired since has been sobering and perplexing.

“I have such high expectations of myself,” he said. “I like to believe they are attainable.”

There have been high points. Hoffman opened the season with a fourth-place showing at a 15-kilometer SuperTour event in West Yellowstone, Mont., took sixth in a 30K NorAm in Vernon, B.C., and made his World Cup start Jan. 17 at Whistler Olympic Park. He wound up taking 25th.

“There were probably 10 true World Cup skiers there that are top-level,” Hoffman said. “In reality, I probably would’ve been in the 60s or 70s in a real World Cup. … It was a great introduction to World Cup skiing. It was definitely a great experience.”

Hoffman headed to Praz de Lys earlier this month to compete in his second and final World Junior Championships.

He was hoping to distinguish himself, but instead took 14th in the 10K skate and 17th in the 20K pursuit.

Hoffman woke up with a fever on the day of the team relay and, after conferring with coaches, decided he had to be in the field for his final junior start. The Americans were not much of a factor in a race and event dominated by the Russians.

“I went for it,” he said. “I hate to say it was good I didn’t do well, but on the other hand I didn’t let anybody down by not skiing well.”

Hoffman is not slated to compete again until the Haywood Ski Nationals in Duntroon, Ontario, where he’s expected to ski in March 9’s 10K freestyle and March 11’s 15 K classic. In the weeks since France, he’s tried to keep busy — something that never before required any effort. He’s been reading, playing chess and catching up on television — his hotel in Praz de Lys had just three channels, and two played music videos. He spent one day helping out Sun Valley’s elementary school nordic program, which Sinnott’s sister, Kelly, runs. He even took a quick trip to Phoenix to hit golf balls with his grandfather and play cribbage with his grandmother.

“I don’t normally get a chance to do that, so it was fun,” he said.

Hoffman is so used to organizing and micro-managing every detail of his life — he and his stable of coaches, which includes AVSC nordic program director John Callahan, obsess over everything from equipment and health to race strategy and summer camp schedules. Admittedly, the recent down time has been difficult.

Still, the respite has given him plenty of time to contemplate the past and what lies ahead.

“I feel like I’ve learned and grown a lot in the last year,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard to look at things from a really different perspective. … One of the things I’ve been reminded of the last couple weeks dealing with these issues and not skiing at a level I’m satisfied with is to think objectively about skiing and try to stay patient.

“It’s a work in progress for sure, and one thing I’m definitely very much susceptible to is overthinking it. … Sometimes you just have to follow the plan.”

Contemplating the future

While he couldn’t fulfill his own lofty expectations in France and narrowly missed out on nabbing one of the U.S. seven spots for the World Championships in the Czech Republic, Hoffman said he’s trying to stay positive. After all, he was the top American finisher in Praz de Lys.

And there’s still plenty of racing left this season. After Canada, Hoffman is slated to take part in the U.S. Long Distance National Championships in Anchorage. Success there could go a long way toward potentially securing him a spot in next year’s Winter Olympics.

“That would be an amazing experience, but the thing about endurance training is consistency over the long term. One of the first real targets I’d say I have as an endurance athlete is the 2014 Olympics,” Hoffman said. “I just want to keep moving forward.”

Maple, too, is realistic. He has no visions of competing in the Olympics just yet. First, his sights are set on winning a NorAm discipline title, which would guarantee him starts on the World Cup circuit.

“As I get older and the older kids move on, it gets more graspable and closer, but it’s still a ways out for sure,” Maple said. “I’m excited. I think I can keep moving up the ranks and get stronger and faster.”

However different they may be, both are hoping dreams one day become reality.

Both are intent on making the most of their unique opportunity, in spite of the sacrifices.

“Being a ski racer has been a goal of mine, a dream of mine,” Hoffman said. “Everybody is staying positive and they think I’m going to rebound. … I want to see where this sport takes me.”

“I got to visit my friends at college in the fall and they were having a fun time. I felt kind of like I was missing out on that chapter in my life, but at the same time I get to do something almost nobody gets to do,” Maple added.

“This is definitely the best job I can think of.”

jmaletz@aspentimes.com

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