On 4 February 2012, deep in British Columbia’s backcountry, Travis Rice did more than win a snowboard contest — he changed what a contest could be. Red Bull Supernatural, held at Baldface Lodge outside Nelson, was a format he had conceived, built and then conquered himself, taking first place with a score of 91.00 points.
A course no one had ridden, a run no one had rehearsed
The 18 invited riders waited at the lodge for three days until clear skies broke over the Selkirk Mountains. With no TV schedule forcing their hand, the athletes decided together that the moment had come and set the drop order themselves. No practice runs were permitted, so every rider faced the mountain blind.
The course, nicknamed “Scary Cherry,” dropped across 2,200 vertical feet of natural terrain carved with over 80 man-made obstacles. A fifty-degree entry pitch fed into pillow lines, huge platforms and a 100-foot booter before finishing through a slopestyle section of log rides and bonks.
A sweep from the first run to the last
Rice led from start to finish, stitching backflips, butters and switch backside 9s into a line that showcased the contest’s dual judging criteria: tricks and the route a rider chose. Gigi Rüf took second with 84.00, while Nicolas Müller claimed third at 82.60. John Jackson earned a Best Trick award for a backside 10 double cork, even as Rice secured the $35,000 top prize.
The field read like a roster of backcountry royalty — Devun Walsh, Jake Blauvelt and others who had skipped established stadium events to be there. Müller captured the shift simply, telling reporters it was an attempt to “take X Games and move it to a real mountain.”
A future seeded in the Selkirks
Rice had already redefined the sport’s visual language that autumn with the release of The Art of Flight, the highest‑budget snowboard film ever made. That project helped earn him both the TransWorld and Snowboarder Magazine Rider of the Year awards for 2012, framing Supernatural not as a lone experiment but as the next logical step for an athlete already pushing every boundary.
“We’re walking away with a different state of mind,” Rice said afterwards. “This was an experiment and it’s the beginning of a new, possible future for snowboarding.”
Seven years later, that future would grow into the Natural Selection Tour, a multi‑discipline backcountry series. Baldface in 2012 was the seed.
