Travis Rice seems calm. Maybe a bit tired but not overwhelmed by logistics. That’s a big feat, considering all that it takes to make the Natural Selection Snow event run smoothly in the Revelstoke Mountain Resort backcountry.

Travis is here with his wife Brook, son Jupiter, daughter Revel and their mini-golden puppy. It’s been snowing hard for the past few days. The riding has been excellent and the Selector venue, having been prepped for the past three weeks by COO Liam Griffin and crew, is undoubtedly deep. Still, there are always last-minute considerations before the contest goes live.

Familiarity helps. This is Natural Selection Snow’s third year running in the RMR backcountry. This year, they’ll do two contest days in Montana Bowl just beyond resort boundaries. Both will broadcast live. The format’s been adjusted a bit to accommodate those two days, and day one will no longer be head-to-head battles but instead three heats of eight riders. It’s a bit complicated, but it goes like this: there will be three rounds of competition on day one. The top two from the first round will transfer straight to the finals. Then, the top riders from the second round of the six remaining riders in each heat will go through. Then, the top rider of the third round, featuring the remaining five riders in each heat, will also transfer to finals day. “The reason for the change was to ensure the best snowboarders of the day make it to the finals,” Travis said.

Natural Selection has entered the refinement stage of hosting this contest in Revelstoke. The venue’s been further cleaned up and enhanced over the summer. Despite the incumbent variables (weather being variable number one), things should run a bit smoother by year three.

Yet Travis is fresh off a heavy run into new territory. The Natural Selection Tour held their first mountain bike and surf events this year, and they’ll go to Alaska for the inaugural ski contest after this. So, Travis has a lot on his mind—this event may be the core of NST, but the team has additional long-term goals.

In the restaurant at Eleven Revelstoke Lodge, we find a relatively quiet booth upstairs. Travis graciously takes fifteen minutes out of his nonstop schedule to talk about both the current moment and the big picture for the Natural Selection Tour. The following is that conversation, edited for length and clarity.

Travis on scope day with veteran NST competitor Torgeir Bergram and first timer Brin Alexander. Photo: Chad Chomlack / Natural Selection Tour

How are you feeling right now?

I’m feeling really good about where we’re at and what we’re doing. I’m obviously a little gassed, a lot going on, a bit sleep deprived. I’m happy to be here with my amazing family. This year’s been insane. This is our third event in six weeks, not even counting Duels, and it’s the main event. Things are freaking rolling. Our team’s kicking ass.

Does it feel like you’re on rails now that you’ve been holding the event here for three years?

Certain things that are tried and true are getting easier, but this event is very complicated. A lot of the complication is around the uncertainty of our backdrop, which is the fun part. Good snow is not a given. It’s not like we just groom and cut the course out and wait for sun; we’re operating with ever-changing weather is uniquely demanding.

Every year we get better—our team gets stronger. Even interfacing with the ski patrol, we’ve been working with those guys for the last two, three years now, there’s good communication. They understand what we’re trying to do. These guys are bad ass. That gets easier.

But then we always try to do a little more, too. Every year we push it a little. We’ve never done the type of live event that we’re doing this year.

A new addition to the Natural Selection event in Revelstoke year is a hand dug banked slalom open to the community. Here, Travis preps his board with his son, Jupiter, and takes his turn through the gates. Photos: Mike Yoshida / Natural Selection Tour

If you get into a complacent space, it gets less exciting, right?

A little, yeah. Or else you finally nailed the formula. But we’re our own hardest critics. We always see the little areas we can improve.

And you’ve got the new events this year—can you tell me more about the motivation behind adding surf, bike and ski?

It’s about growing past this [snowboard only contest] into something that’s a four seasons, cohesive thing. We’ve discussed it for years. This is our fifth season [of the Natural Selection Tour] and we did three years prior to the start of the modern incarnation. We’ve always strived for a sustainable model that that truly offers a level of symbiosis to the riders, the ownership, the partners, the sponsors.

To be blunt, for something to be truly sustainable, it also has to be sustainable as a business. It has to be sustainable financially. And we can’t do it with just the support of endemic snowboard brands.

We empathize with the current state of our industry, and we want everyone to win. If you look at it through a lens of, we built something that’s really compelling that has a very authentic fan base, that has added something culturally to our global community, I think that’s why mountain biking reached out to us around three years ago. It was like, ‘Hey, we’ve been trying to build something like this. We want something like this.’

Top and bottom views of the east and west side of the Selector venue, respectively. Photos: Chad Chomlack / Mike Yoshida / Natural Selection Tour

Who did that come from? [Todd] Barber [of H5Events, who ran Natural Selection Bike in New Zealand and also runs Red Bull Rampage among other gatherings]?

From Barber, Carson Storch, and a number of athletes. We’ve done three years of Proving Grounds, but this is the first year the bike has been at the same level as our main events.

There was an element of, ‘Hey, this might be a good idea because it helps us keep kind of year-round group of people working on it together.’ But at the same time, almost a more influential piece of it was the fact that it’s just a great community. The bike community globally is incredible and a lot of our employees and contractors, myself included, like mountain biking. It’s a good group of people and if we can offer something, then that was the impetus of it. Just like rolling into ski, it’s not a huge leap.

So, our thesis around this [expansion] is that a rising tide lifts all ships. This society of mutual admiration that we continue to live in is a collection of amazing, unique, nuanced cultures that have a ton of overlap. We’re stronger together and that is the root of why we’re doing the expansion: we see a model that we can actually lift what we’re doing in snowboarding by trying to add something of value to our brothers and sisters in these beautiful other cultures where there’s so much cross-pollination.

We draw a lot of influence from a number of these other spaces. These other spaces draw a lot of influence from snowboarding. And they are all absolutely unique in their own way. The last thing we want to do is stick them together in the same space like the X Games: you do your flips here, and you can do your flips over there. We’ve taken a much more considered approach where we’re trying to foster endemic and authentic expansion and evolution within each one of these things.

Because on paper, sure, copy and paste. Hey, it works. It’s an easy model. But I think anyone who’s in the know understands that the nuances and differences between each one of these cultures is something to be celebrated. As we move forward, we’re wanting these things to grow into their own fully realized visions. There’s going to be forks in the road. There’s going to be format changes. There’s going to be departures. And ultimately, we want them to look like they’re destined to be and to be influenced by the ones that care the most about them.

Natural Selection COO Liam Griffin atop the Selector venue, which will host both contests days this year, as opposed to just the semfinals per previous years. “Focusing all of our energy on one venue this year has felt really refreshing, and we’re feeling way more dialed,” he says. Photo: Chad Chomlack / Natural Selection Tour

They’re kind of like siblings, where you can come from the same place and then find your own path… the bike event seemed like the riders were stoked. The surf event seemed like exactly what the surfers wanted. Do you have a strong vision for what you want the multi-sport Natural Selection Tour to grow into?

There’s definitely a vision for it. There’s a vision for how it functions and then there’s also the realities of like, there’s only so much we can do when it comes to servicing our partners and sponsors and realistically solving the challenges and realities. To do these events at this level, they’re expensive. We need to raise funds and bring partners onto these things and make sure that we overdeliver on the value that those partners are paying into it.

You’re gonna struggle to find health in the long run if you’re just doing two events or even three events in just one community. Ultimately, it’s about providing this benevolent, very ambitious product with the help of multiple verticals, all uniquely operating at peak existence.

From a snowboarding perspective, you can look at it through the lens of like, why are we dabbling in surf and ski and bike? It’s for the long-term health and viability of the snowboarding property. To be fully realized, you have to access partners across the spectrum.

So hopefully, together, all these events can be cohesive and collectively become something that can sustain itself perpetually.

That’s just it. It’s a grand experiment in seeking sustainability. At the end of the day, that’s the simple answer.

Aya Sato won her duel in Myoko, Japan, and is a first time competitor. Mary Rand landed second last year. They’re both excited to drop in. Photo: Mike Yoshida / Natural Selection Tour

Nils Mindnich and the rest of the drop order. Tune in live on Friday, March 14 at 1PM PST for Day one, with day two still TBD. Photo: Chad Chomlack / Natural Selection Tour