CARRABASSETT VALLEY, Maine — At approximately 6:34 a.m. Monday, Myles Silverman stood atop Sugarloaf Mountain's Narrow Gauge trail with one goal in mind: setting the Guinness World Record for the greatest vertical distance snowboarded in 12 hours.
Fifty-six runs, nearly 100,000 vertical feet of snowboarding, and 12 hours later, Silverman was popping champagne in front of the SuperQuad lift, having successfully broken the record.
“I think it was probably one of the most fun times I’ve had snowboarding. Like, it brought out a love for snowboarding for me," Silverman said. "Especially in the morning when I had the sunrise. It was warm out, and [I had] Narrow Gauge to myself. So, I thought that was a super cool thing.”
Sugarloaf lifts don't usually start spinning until 8 a.m. and are usually closed by 4 p.m. But they opened early and closed late for Silverman, who grew up snowboarding and racing at the mountain.
"I think a lot of my passion for snowboarding and competing has come from Seth Wescott," Silverman said. "He's a family friend, so we saw him at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics, so right from a young age I kind of always had this dream of competing for the U.S. at the Winter Olympics."
That dream lives on. After competing on the World Cup circuit last season, he said his sights are set on qualifying for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.
Silverman grew up in Boston, moved to Brunswick when he was 7 years old, attended high school in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and then snowboarded collegiately for New York's Hobart and William Smith Colleges before joining the U.S. Snowboarding Racing Team in 2015.
Ages 7 to 14 were when he realized his passion for the sport, and much of those years were spent at Sugarloaf. He said it was a no-brainer for him to attempt the record at his home mountain, and he spent the entire day riding a Winterstick snowboard, made in a factory on Sugarloaf mountain.
“It was kind of poetic how Winterstick is made at Sugarloaf. So I used a board that Sugarloaf made, on Sugarloaf, to break a world record. And I’m a Sugarloafer," he said. "So, I was super pumped about that.”
Silverman noted he couldn't have broken the record without the support of Winterstick and Sugarloaf.
"Huge shoutout to all the people who helped me, because it wouldn't have been possible without them," he said.
"We were very excited to help Myles in his world record attempt, and proud of his efforts to break the record. Myles has a true passion for snowboarding and for Sugarloaf, and epitomizes the Sugarloaf spirit," Ethan Austin, Sugarloaf's marketing director, told NEWS CENTER Maine via email. "It was fun for us to be a part of this record, and we couldn't be happier for Myles."
Silverman's 95,088 feet handily surpassed the previous world record of 62,335 feet, set by Keith Hayes in British Columbia, Canada, in 2017. Hayes completed 40 runs in just under 10 hours.
"It's kind of surreal," Silverman said. "Before I did the attempt, I was kind of thinking about being a kid and looking through the Guinness World Records, and I never thought about it in my dreams that I'd be able to do something like that."