Photo: NST
With “Natural Selection was here” scrawled on the walls of Montana Bowl outside Revelstoke Mountain Resort, the two days of competition are officially behind us. Bombholes, straightlines, and more than a few tracks that’ll make you shake your head and whisper ‘what-the-f**k.’
Day One of competition was arguably more exciting than Finals Day. It was a zoo-like atmosphere, with the animals on full display for the crowd at the bottom. “For Whom the Bell Tolls” cranked out of the speakers when Whistler’s own Brin Alexander dropped first, flowed down the course and went full send with a melon grab off the nose of a massive cliff above the spectator corral. He didn’t stomp it, nor did he advance through to finals, but Brin made his own kind of impression on the bloodthirsty crowd.
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His commitment set the tone for the entire field, because every single competitor followed suit. Last year’s winner, the mild-mannered Mikey Ciccarelli, threw down an absolute heater on his first lap, dropping a mic-ed up “f**k yeah” as he rolled away from the line that earned him the highest score of the day.
“That’s why I f**king love snowboarding—that flow state you get into. It’s insane!” he said in an on-screen interview with Stan Leveille afterwards.
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Dustin Craven, the Calgary-born shredder that Revelstoke has adopted as its own, had unfinished business from last year. He went straight to “Kootenay King,” his namesake line that got the better of him in 2024. But Craven was late in the field, so several competitors had tracked out the in-run. He pointed it nonetheless and, against all logic and reason, managed to hang on tight.
“That’s a make!” shouted someone from his fanbase in the crowd below. And the judges thought so too, giving him a pass into finals.
The change in format for day one really shook things up. Instead of the traditional NST head-to-head combat, they ran eight-person heats, where riders who weren’t immediately given the nod into quarters were given two additional tries to get’er done. Two competitors were taken through in the first round, one in the second, and one in the third, ultimately cutting the field in half for finals day.
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The judges sent Elena Hight a message on her first run, letting her know that a conservative approach, at least by her standards, would not be rewarded. So she stuck to her strengths on her second, billygoating into a massive double-drop that many people thought was the best run of the day.
The new format turned the third run into a “Hail Mary Round” where the riders, tired and desperate, were given one last chance. This yielded some of the best damn snowboarding that we’ll ever see. And while not all of it worked out, it made for one helluva show. Travis Rice, up against the ropes, attempted a transfer that only he could envision. But it looked like his take-off gave way and he kitty-kicked across the chasm, narrowly avoiding injury and being eliminated from the field.
Blake Moller — the 2022 FWT Champion — rode strong through his first two runs, linking features together with the prowess of a man thinking three moves ahead. But it wasn’t until his last ride of the day (and the last for the field) — with 55 people having dropped before him — that Moller punctuated his run with a frontside 540 into one of the more chewed-up parts of the course and straightlined switchstance into finals day.
Spencer O’Brien atop the women’s podium. Photo: NST
“I think this week for snowboarding in general was pretty spectacular,” said Canada’s Spencer O’Brien, who ultimately stood atop the box for the ladies. “Watching the men absolutely send stuff that I didn’t even think was humanly possible. Everyone just went HAM. It was really, really, really cool to watch and even more special to be a part of.”
O’Brien surprised us all by taking down Elena Hight, who many people (including me) had picked to win. And that didn’t come easy, because Hight tapped into her old halfpipe roots up high on the course, throwing a slightly overcooked frontside 7 before scratching her way into new terrain and exiting with a full-speed double drop. Had she stomped that 7 and/or gotten into her two-stage exit without stopping, Spencer wouldn’t have stood a chance.
With the head-to-head, two-run format back on the table for finals day, O’Brien answered back with a stomped cab 5 and a boned-out indy off a sizeable cliff and a few proper, surf-inspired powder hacks, posting a 77.3 on her first run that carried her through to victory.
“I’m so glad you won,” said Hight as she hugged O’Brien afterwards.
“Thanks for coming out swinging,” replied O’Brien.
“We’ve been really, really good friends forever and obviously she rode halfpipe and I rode slopestyle,” Spencer went on afterwards. “But we’ve always been on the same sponsors and stayed really close over the years.”
With everyone so hyped up on the women’s final, the men’s final between tour rookies Blake Moller and Ståle Sandbech was almost overlooked. That’s partially because there was weather rolling in and no downtime after the women dropped. But it was also a function of the men’s finals just not being that interesting. Both riders were beat and so was the course.
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Ultimately it was Sandbech, who somehow rode the venue with a playfulness normally reserved for sidehits, that came out on top. His 91 — the highest score of the day — in the first run of the semi-finals is the line to watch.
Blake Moller came correct through the entire contest and if he’d been able to stomp his natty backside 7 in the final, he would’ve taken the win. In the end, I’d say he let Sandbech off easy. But Sandbech’s freestyle approach in consequential terrain was more than worthy of the win.
“There’s so many factors that, when it comes time for your run, you have to turn on your instincts and go spontaneous,” he says. “It’s so different every time, and you can’t really predict where people are going or what’s going to happen.”
Stale Sandbech took home the victory on the mens’ side. Photo: NST
Now both he and Spencer have new Ski Doos and the lion’s share of the $130,000 purse. But there’s a lot more to Natural Selection than prize money and snowmobiles.
“We all really give a shit and we want to leave snowboarding better than what we found it,” Rice said.
If the lines left behind on Montana Bowl are any indication, it’s safe to say that Travis’s vision is rolling out as intended.
Photo: NST
Photo: NST
