The best backcountry riders are in a head-to-head race

Snowboard legend Travis Rice is looking forward to the Natural Selection Tour in Wyoming this week.

The 2021 Natural Selection Tour kicks off this week at snowboarding freeride mecca Jackson Hole Mountain Resort in Wyoming, where the world's best snowboarders will compete in steep and deep natural terrain.

Event founder Travis Rice will join Canadian star Mark McMorris, reigning Olympic Big Air champion Anna Gasser and American Hailey Langland for the first of three stops before the field moves on to Baldface Lodge's Scary Cherry in Canada and Tordrillo Mountain Lodge in Alaska for the finale.

Here's what Rice - the star of snowboarding films The Art of Flight, The Fourth Phase and Dark Matter - had to say before the launch:

With the first stop of the tour only a week away, how are things going in Jackson?

Well, I just came down from the mountain and today was actually pretty monumental. We had just finished all the work on the track when a storm hit. It's going to snow heavily for three days and we're happy to get away now and let Mother Nature do her thing.

Can you give us two different pitches for Natural Selection - one for snowboarders who aren't interested in contests, and one for someone who has only seen snowboarding through the X Games and the Olympics?

To start with the first category: I think the wonderfully dynamic, full-spectrum kind of snowboarding we're going for with Natural Selection appeals to fans of backcountry riding and film. When you look at a film part that someone has invested a whole season in, you see the cream of the crop. For some riders, it takes a lot of tries, a lot of failures, to get a few successes. But to really see riders compete in a live scenario... well, you don't get three tries at a trick on a natural feature. So I think one of the most exciting aspects of this event is seeing some of the best backcountry riders in the world go head to head, stomp for stomp.

For an audience that only knows the contest aspect of snowboarding, I'd love to talk about how hyper-specific contests have become. If someone wins a big halfpipe contest like the Olympics, they are the best halfpipe rider in the world. But if someone wins this Natural Selection event, I don't think it's an exaggeration to call that person the best rider in the world. Because to ride well here, you need a lifetime of experience. You can draw on that when you're riding the street, when you're riding transitions in the pipe, when you're doing tricks on a slopestyle course. And you benefit from it when you ride backcountry - how to choose a line, how to ride variable snow, how to choose a line, visualize it and execute it.

How has the concept changed since the last Ultra Natural event in 2013?

The biggest change is that we've gone from an overall ranking to a head-to-head system. With the overall ranking format, you can't really remember what people have done, so you just end up looking at the scoreboard. So we went with a head-to-head system. So now Driver A just has to compete against Driver B, and the winner moves on to the next round. Also, we're doing a best-of-three system, which means if each driver wins a heat, there's a bonus round for the tie-breaker. This will make it very difficult for the judges at times, but overall I think it will be a bit more fun for both the drivers and the spectators.

Hosting a contest in steep, natural terrain must present unique challenges. What was the biggest one?

We have really high standards for how we want to broadcast a live show. To bring the kind of technological solutions that we want to do, in full winter conditions, is huge. One of the things we've done is develop these camera drones, with world champion drone pilots. These drones have to carry serious technology, from the cameras and lenses we want to use, to special gimbals (stabilizers) with high quality live broadcast equipment on board.

There is a large cross section of shredders. If you had to pick a winner for Jackson, who would it be?

It's hard to pick just one, I can tell you that. But I'm excited to see Victor de Le Rue. He's such a solid rider, I'm excited to see how he does here. On the women's side, I'm really excited to see how Marion Haerty handles the course. She's such a dominant rider on the Freeride World Tour, but I think she has a freestyle background as well, so I'm looking forward to seeing a different side of her in Jackson.

What aspects of women's riding will shine compared to more traditional big air/slopestyle formats?

The venue itself is as open to how the participants want to ride it. Unlike traditional events with set features, our venue is so much bigger, like seven to eight times bigger than a slopestyle course, if not more. There are so many more lines to choose from. I think the women will be able to ride the way they want to ride and be inspired to do so. Women's snowboarding has definitely evolved faster than men's in the last few years and honestly the women's event is what I'm looking forward to the most.

Watch the event live on Red Bull TV from February 3 to 9. HERE on.