The first stop of Travis Rice’s Natural Selection Tour featured the most diverse roster of the best all-mountain, freestyle snowboarders in the world competing in a head-to-head format.
This marks year two of pro snowboarder Travis Rice’s manifestation of a completely new big mountain freestyle tour. Today’s roster featured eight men and four women riders all coming from diverse snowboarding backgrounds—ranging from halfpipe and slopestyle riders, to dedicated big mountain freeriders, to backcountry freestyle riders competing in conditions that Rice described as “sporty-slash-tricky” in the north-facing in-bounds terrain at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. The stakes couldn’t have been higher, as the unforgiving two-run head-to-head format rewarded risk, flow, creativity, tricks and control, with judges considering each riders’ overall run from top to bottom, with the option for a third tie-breaker run.
The day kicked off with eight men going head-to-head in the quarterfinals. Natural Selection rookie Jared Elston (USA) kicked it off as the first rider to drop, he came out swinging to overtake Dustin Craven (CAN), following that with a huge win against fan-favorite Torstein Horgmo (NOR)—who himself had just earned the second-highest score of the day in qualifiers to advance against event founder and GOAT Travis Rice. Elston’s semi-finals run included a stylish double Wildcat (“backie”), which announcer Pat Bridges dubbed “easily the best run so far of the day” to earn his place in finals. Sage Kotsenburg (USA), in a 2021 rematch with an alternate outcome, took out Ben Ferguson (USA), after defeating his younger brother Gabe Ferguson in Tuesday’s qualifiers. He then proceeded to put down a styled-out inverted backside 720 to take out 2021 Overall Natural Selection Tour winner Mikkel Bang (NOR) in the semi-finals.
nd so it was Kotsenburg and Elston in finals—an Olympic slopestyle gold medalist versus an up-and-coming rookie Natural Selection rider whose pro contest winnings begin and end with the 2016 Drink Water Double Tap race. The two finalists previously filmed together for the 2019 Halcyon film, so there was a certain camaraderie at play, but make no mistake—they were both here to win. Kotsenburg took the lead in the first round, stomping a backside 720 Japan, a massive frontside 720, ending with a Cab 900 to close it out. Elston answered back with his double backflip, a Cab 540 before going down on a huge backside 720. And so it was that Kotsenburg claimed victory as the YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole men’s winner. Kotsenburg led with consistency, pulling out the big slopestyle tricks to claim his victory and closing out a huge contest day not just winning, but winning with the day’s highest score.
Kotsenberg said, “I was so hyped this morning shredding corduroy I just wanted to be on my board as much as I could, so I just tried to beat every person I got up against.” Heading into the final run, with the course having seen a full day of action, Kotsenburg said, “The goal was basically to levitate down the entire run and touch the least amount of snow as I could—it was so bumpy in there. I did some sevens, mixed a nine in there, toward the end just cruised it. My legs were so smoked. It was a long day. Leading up to that run, the goal was staying on my feet.”
The women’s semi-finals field featured four women, local favorite Hana Beaman (USA) versus Elena Hight (USA), with Hight overtaking Beaman landing a clean run with her signature method. In the second heat, it was Marion Haerty (FRA) versus inaugural 2021 Natural Selection Overall Tour winner, Robin Van Gyn (CAN). Van Gyn put down two huge backside 360 tail grabs, which announcer Pat Bridges proclaimed to be “the highlight of her first and second runs,” to eliminate Haerty.
And so it was Hight versus Van Gyn in the finals—with Hight, a halfpipe contest rider turned big mountain freerider, versus Van Gyn, a backcountry rider since day one. It was back-and-forth as Van Gyn took the first round, and Elena answered back on the second, taking the women’s finals into a third-run tiebreaker. This full reset run saw Hight throw down a backside 360 into her undefeated method, milking the last of the powder and launch pads on her way to the win in a Herculean effort to finish off this huge day of competition. “We’ll battle again!” declared Van Gyn.
Hight said of this win, “Coming in I’ve really been focused more on riding big mountains and lines, so this is a little bit out of my element. It’s really fun to get back into the contest scene, the nerves are still the same. Today was definitely a battlefield out there. The snow was better than on qualifying day, but with all the tracks, it ended up pretty bumpy. My favorite trick in snowboarding is a method, so I stuck with that on one of the main jumps and it treated me well.” At which Rice chimed in, “Elena Hight by far taking the beastiest lines of the day—the methods you were popping off on a feature called Beaver Tooth, a thing of beauty!”
Elena shared what this win means to her, “This event is truly made by snowboarders for snowboarders, and it truly is a mashup of everything we all love about snowboarding—the freedom, the creativity, the style and the contest aspect meshed together. I think that this event means so much to snowboarding as an industry. I’m just honored to be here with all these women and the men, they are so impressive and all of my heroes, so to win this event doesn’t even feel real.”
Rice, the visionary behind the Natural Selection Tour, says, “It was a big day, even though conditions were sporty—we’ve had literally six inches of snow in the last month—to have riders perform the way they did today was incredible. Conditions were incredibly tricky. I think that’s the type of thing that’s going to come through the most is being able to ride with the speed and tenacity that riders rode today in these kinds of conditions, is super impressive.”
The YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort marked the first stop of the three-stop tour. From Jackson, the tour will venture north to the Natural Selection at Baldface Lodge in B.C, Canada Feb. 20th – 27th; and culminate at the Natural Selection in the Tordrillo Mountains of Alaska March 21st – 28th, where the tour champions—the best all-mountain male and female freestyle riders on the planet—will ultimately be crowned.
Kotsenburg, as the new tour leader is looking forward to Baldface, he says, “I would definitely like to win the tour—that would be awesome. Winning one is cool, but winning the whole thing would be amazing.” Elena Hight, the women’s tour leader shares, “I’m super stoked to just be invited on this tour—just to be in Jackson is an honor and to go to Baldface, really is the dream.” All of today’s field will be heading to Baldface Lodge for the next stop of the tour, where they will also be joined by 2021 YETI Natural Selection at Jackson Hole winners Mark McMorris (CAN) and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott (NZL), who have been invited to rejoin the tour following their Olympic bids.
Viewers worldwide are able to watch the live competition again and again on NaturalSelectionTour.com.
As for the success of this first stop of the tour, Rice declares, “It takes a frickin’ village. The Natural Selection is possible because of the riders who show up and believe in it, the brands with our industry alliance that show up believe in it, some of our key partners like YETI who titles this event here in Jackson, and of course Jackson Hole Mountain Resort for letting us hold this event on inbounds terrain.”