In 2012, Travis Rice won the TransWorld and Snowboarder Magazine Rider of the Year awards. It was his second time sweeping both titles. Readers and the industry vote for the prizes, and one film carried him to them.
A film that became a movement
Released in September 2011, The Art of Flight was the most costly snowboard film ever made. Rice co-produced it with Brain Farm Digital Cinema. He took big park tricks into the wild mountains.
On those peaks, a fall could send a rider down a sheer face or into a crevasse. Rice landed the tricks anyway. The footage changed how people saw the sport.
The crew chased snow across the world. “South America. We filmed and snowboarded down there the last two summers,” Rice told reporters. “Unfortunately for us, they had two of the worst seasons they’ve had down there.”
Four polls, seventeen honours
The 2012 prize was not his first. Rice had also won Snowboarder Magazine Rider of the Year in 2002, 2004 and 2007. The new win lifted his total to seventeen — the most in the title’s history.
“Experiencing the world through endless second-hand information isn’t enough,” Rice said of the project. “If we want authenticity we have to initiate it.”
The honours spread beyond snowboard media that year. At 29, Rice was named a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year. He also built and won the first Red Bull Supernatural, a backcountry contest at Baldface Lodge in British Columbia.
