Natural Selection Tour, Travis Rice’s all-mountain freeride snowboard competition, has become renowned for its video-game-like footage of elite snowboarders riding some of the planet’s wildest terrain.
From Valdez, Alaska, to British Columbia’s Selkirk Tangiers heli skiing tenure, Natural Selection Tour (NST), now in its fourth year, offers viewers a veritable eyeball feast of helicopter-access-only zones that many will never see for themselves. (More about how it’s possible to stream an event of this nature from deep in the backcountry here.)
In its first two years of existence, NST’s first stage happened on naturally enhanced inbound terrain at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort—much more familiar to the average rider.
In 2023, the event introduced its DUELS concept as a first stage, in which two riders competed head to head to secure a spot in the second stage, held in the backcountry 15 miles outside Revelstoke Mountain Resort.
This year, however, in between another DUELS round and a final event in the Revelstoke backcountry that will stream “as live” on April 4, NST held a livestreamed quarterfinals event just outside the boundary of Revelstoke Mountain Resort on naturally enhanced terrain in the Montana Bowl.
Those in the know could ski, ride and hike a ways from the resort’s in-bounds runs to end up at the base of the Montana Bowl, watching the tail end of riders’ runs.
It took 3,500 man hours, beginning last summer, to transform the Montana Bowl for the event.
A team led by pro snowboarder Dustin Craven, who is originally from Calgary, Alberta, and is now based in Revelstoke, built 40 platforms scattered throughout eight zones the 24 riders in the field could drop into for their two runs.
At the event, which ran on March 13, 12 riders—eight men and four women—advanced to the final: Torstein Horgmo (Norway), Sage Kotsenburg (USA), Austen Sweetin (USA), Mikey Ciccarelli (Canada), Jared Elston (USA), Nils Mindnich (USA), Torgeir Bergrem (Norway), Travis Rice (USA), Hailey Langland (USA), Jamie Anderson (USA), Marion Haerty (France) and Mary Rand (USA).
Throughout the week, locals and resort guests encountered the riders, the majority of whom were staying at Revelstoke Mountain Resort, in the village’s coffee shops and restaurants, on the gondola and on the slopes.
Canadian locals showed up to support their national heroes in Ciccarelli as well as Craven, Mark McMorris, Chris Rasman, and Robin Van Gyn, who were eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Freeskier Sammy Carlson, originally from Oregon and now based in Revelstoke, where he has been fiercely adopted by locals as their own, was also on hand to support the riders.
Natural Selection Tour is snowboarding’s “Super Bowl,” Craven said. “The community is super involved in it—they know it’s happening, there’s a hum around town, and everyone has their pick and is getting ready for it. Having it live is huge.”
It was a level of accessibility—both in terms of access to the riders as well as to the base of the venue—rarely seen in other pro sports and not always seen in freeride ski and snowboard events, which, as mentioned previously, are often held in remote backcountry territories accessible only by helicopter.
“Having people out there actually cheering and stuff, it’s really cool,” Craven said. “The last couple years we’ve been out in the backcountry, and it’s quiet. You could really hear the hillside come alive; that was a cool added experience. Next year with more time we could probably make a better staging area for spectators down there.”
“It’s so cool that they did it near a resort where people can come watch,” McMorris said. “It’s close to the resort, it’s easier to go live. This is a good business model.”
Ben Ferguson echoed that sentiment. “There’s a little more energy, and it’s a little less exclusive, which is really sweet,” he said. “I enjoy it, and the terrain is pretty damn good.”
Craven values the accessibility of a resort-adjacent NST stage so much so that in the future, he hopes to see an event held entirely in-bounds.
“Every year we’re just hoping to make it a little bigger and open up a little more terrain,” Craven said. “I would really like it if eventually the entire contest could just be held on the ski hill or if we could have two days and let the snow reset mid-window. If the whole thing was there it’d be awesome and probably a little easier to do it live.”
Not many resorts could accommodate NST’s key combination of freestyle and big-mountain riding within their bounds, but Revelstoke, boasting the most vertical in North America (5,620 feet), is not just any resort.
Another benefit of holding an NST event in-bounds or just outside the bounds of a ski resort is allowing freestylers and freeriders to truly shine. Naturally enhancing terrain by adding platforms and kickers for more slopestyle-adjacent jumps and tricks still leaves plenty of pillows and cliffs for big-mountain riding to shine.
And while NST snowboarders are selected because they are the best of the best, they appreciate a venue they can wrap their minds around. Having a trusted peer oversee the venue design and build—in the past, the work had been outsourced, to less-than-perfect results—allows them to showcase their best riding.
“They did such a great job of building this course and really making it open to interpretation, more so than some of the courses we’ve had in the past,” Elena Hight said. “It was just a lot of options so everyone kind of had the opportunity to get at least two hits in the beginning on the top before they even dropped into the face.”
“I’d have nightmares that people were mad or that something didn’t work, so when everyone comes out and sees it in person, everyone was so excited,” Craven said. “To have that after some of the other venues in the past where people are just like not really stoked or kind of scared, it’s nice to have everyone saying it looks really fun. It’s nice to hear.”
(And no, Craven never did drop in to the course he built prior to the day of competition. “I had walked through it, but I had never strapped into a snowboard on it because I didn’t want to ruin the experience,” he said.)
Revelstoke Mountain Resort leadership also sees a resort-adjacent event, like the one NST held last week, as a value add.
“The addition of the Montana Bowl venue this year elevated the event on multiple levels,” said Peter Nielsen, vice president and general manager, Revelstoke Mountain Resort.
“Not only did it contribute to the town’s workforce during the construction phase, it also created an accessible option for locals and visitors to catch the action live,” Nielsen continued. “The intention of this addition was to enhance the experience of riders and spectators, as well as serve as a legacy piece for our community to enjoy long after the event wraps.”
Indeed, while NST’s presence in Revelstoke the last two years has led to a tourism boom—per Cat Moffat of Revelstoke’s Community Economic Development department, year-over-year data from 2023 stated increases in skier visits of 16% and Revelstoke hotel occupancies of 7.5 % during the same time period in 2022—NST, local organizers and the resort itself are increasingly focused on ways the event can benefit the local community.
“Through joint initiatives with YETI and Natural Selection Tour, we’ve been able to give back to the community over the past two years. These efforts highlight the event’s dedication to maintaining a balanced relationship between tourism development and community preservation,” Nielsen said.
Craven was blown away by how respectful the local community and tourists alike were regarding the Montana Bowl venue, which was closed three weeks before the event to maintain conditions for the riders. When skiers and snowboarders found themselves near the venue and came across event signage, they stopped and left the course untouched.
Revelstoke is not a large city; as of 2021, its census population was 8,275. Thanks to its humid continental climate that produces a whopping 49.2 feet of yearly snowfall, Revelstoke Mountain Resort is one of the snowiest ski resorts in the world. Lift, cat, heli and backcountry skiing and snowboarding, as a result, are crucial to the city’s economy.
However, the city also has a vibrant art scene. Revelstoke-based artist Jess Leahey pondered the similarities between the community-focused goals of Natural Selection Tour and her initiative, the Revelstoke Outdoor Art Movement (ROAM), as the two teams worked to install their separate projects on the resort this past summer.
“I could see them building that spectacular venue across the valley and I remember thinking that we are also building our passion project in the middle of nowhere,” Leahey said. “All those launch pads they built in that insanely steep environment is quite the ‘art installation!’”
ROAM is a secret art project that has seen Leahey and other local artists install close to 60 pieces of art around the mountain. Many of the installations use recycled and repurposed waste donated from the ski, snowboard and bike industries such as old skis, snowboards, climbing skins, ski goggles, ski boots, mountain bike tires and an old chairlift.
Initially, the art was installed covertly and then with the cooperation of the resort. There are no maps or guides posted about where to find the art; the idea is that the community chooses to bring new people in on it, giving them a sense of ownership.
Many of the journalists and athletes who found themselves at Revelstoke for NST this year delighted in discovering the art on their trek to the venue or as they skied and rode around the resort.
“I think an unintended consequence of these passion projects is community,” Leahey said. “As the metaphorical bar rises, it makes new spaces for the passionate to occupy. It’s a classic case of, ‘If you build it, they will come.’”
That’s one motto to describe the work Craven and his team did to build the venue for this year’s Natural Selection Tour Revelstoke event, which including creating the platforms by sourcing trees that were in the area and glading the face.
Not only did it create jobs within the local economy, where forestry and construction join tourism and snowsports as key industries—many locals simply wanted to volunteer their time.
“The amount of people that I get asking me for jobs now in the summer, they don’t even ask for money; they’re just like, ‘I’ll come out there and do the work,’” Craven said. “They just want to be a part of it. That’s just cool. It’s so refreshing that RMR [Revelstoke Mountain Resort] stepped up and put so much into this event.”
Nielsen expressed similar community-oriented goals with regard to NST’s future at Revelstoke Mountain Resort.
“Moving forward, we will continue to prioritize initiatives that not only promote tourism but also contribute to the overall well-being of our community,” Nielsen said.
“Continuing to partner with socially responsible and enriching events such as NST, we can build a future where tourism thrives alongside community development, creating lasting benefits for all who call this place home.”