For Travis Parker, humility is key. It wasn’t always that way, though. “I used to cut to the front of the lift lines here,” he says as we load the Palmer Express at Timberline Lodge, OR. “I was acting like a real jerk back then.” The self that Travis describes is a far cry from how he’s been acting today—picking up a piece of trash per run, stopping to thank ski patrol, lifties and the like for simply doing their jobs. Travis says he’s just grateful to be here, and it genuinely shows.

Despite his 42 years of age, it’s Travis’ youthful energy on-hill that gets me. He lowers his goggles, surveys the slope, then claps and rubs his hands together in excitement. He’s happy, and it’s infectious. On the surface, Travis displays the same frolicsome demeanor the snowboard world grew to know and love at the turn of the millennium, when he emerged as one of the most charismatic and progressive riders of his time. But there’s much more to Travis than some laughs and a bag of tricks. 

Wisdom comes from experience, and Travis has a lot of both. It shocked many when he quit snowboarding professionally in 2010, at a time when he still held a lot of influence. After lapping the lifts till close, Travis sat down and filled me in on what happened, and how he’s been since. True to form, he came across colorfully, but in a different shade than before. The light Travis had to shed on his current approach to life proved to be just as powerful, timeless and inspiring as his riding ever was…

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