Travis Rice Snowboarder: A Guy Born With a Snowboard

Our article is about Travis Rice snowboarder – one of the most famous people in the world of snowboarding. His choice of places to ride, and crazy and insane tricks will not leave anyone indifferent. For Travis, snowboarding is not a sport but an art. In one of his interviews, to the question “What is his main difference from the equally famous rider Sean White?” Travis Rice replied with a smile: “Sean wants to be a rock star, but I just want to grow a beard and have fun in nature.” This sums up Rice. His greatness is in simplicity, his legend lies not in titles and awards, but in the ability to live in harmony with nature. 

Travis Rice Snowboarder’s First Steps

Travis Rice was born in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA. His father worked as a lifeguard and pulled people out of avalanches and snow piles. It is not surprising that having learned to walk, little Travis immediately began to ski. Skiing, due to its lightness, became uninteresting to him. And after a couple of difficult days of training, he already skied freely along the most difficult slopes of the resort. 

Rice remembers very well how the idea of ​​snowboarding came about: “I first saw snowboarders in Jackson Hole as a child. There were few of them, but they soon built themselves several trick areas: a halfpipe, a quarterpipe, and a wall. I was probably 6 years old then, but I remember that those sites seemed to be the coolest things in the entire resort. They were not so big and grandiose, but for me then they seemed just gigantic. I watched snowboarders ski all the time, and once I even tried skiing on a halfpipe. After that, I realized that the only thing I want to dedicate my life to is snowboarding.”

Travis Rice Snowboarder’s Right Path

And so it happened. Travis threw his skis away, moving to a snowboard. Later, he joined the local team. In 2001, Rice spontaneously traveled to the Superpark tournament in California. And after performing several ultra tricks there, he returned home as a rising snowboard star. Travis is sure that that tournament changed his life: “When I did the 36-meter jump at Superpark-2001, it was a great achievement. I was a nobody and immediately won a major tournament. After that, I took a year off from school and everything went like clockwork. It was the cornerstone of my career. A shift of fate that led me on the right path.

Further on, Rice was showered with awards from powerful tournaments, including two golds from the Winter Extreme Games (X Games). At the beginning of the 2000s, Travis was recognized as the best young snowboarder in the world, and then simply the best in the world. But cool stunts and victories in competitions did not inspire Travis. He wanted other victories – over himself and nature. The Olympic Games have never been a priority.

Overcoming Fear of Mountains And The Clairvoyant

But Travis Rice snowboarder didn’t always aim for mountains and wilderness. In the family of a lifeguard in a ski resort, it’s hard not to understand how dangerous the mountains are. Once Travis experienced the full power of wildlife on himself – in 2004 he fell under an avalanche. Rice was swept away by a snow stream from the slope and almost was completely covered with snow. After that incident, he caught a phobia-feeling that he could die at any moment. Two years later, another event happened that changed Travis’s life – he met with a clairvoyant.

“I wouldn’t call her a fortune teller, that’s the wrong word. But she had some kind of powers related to clairvoyance. And then she explained to me everything that happened on the day when I got under the avalanche. Her words freed my mind. They revealed to me the fact that there are a lot of things in our world that cannot be seen with the eyes. And no, she didn’t tell me that “life is short, so enjoy it and make the most of it while you can.”

It’s not about that at all. But she gave me meaning and told me about the reasons for our existence. It was cool to realize that the world is so much more than we think.” Rice realized that he no longer wanted to ride in snowboard parks or ski slopes. He wanted more – to conquer places unknown to man. Thus he began his career as a free rider, without any trails and equipped areas for skiing. Only the slopes of the mountains and an untouched pillow of snow.

Travis Rice Snowboarder: Film Acting

Travis began acting in films immediately after the first victory in 200. He was noticed by the producers of Absinthe Films. Rice appeared in the sports film Supremacy (2002) where he performed tricks with other snowboarders, but his real success came with the Red Bull-sponsored documentary The Art of Flying (2011).

The tape was prepared for two years. During this time, Rice and his friends visited three countries and several mountain ranges – he rolled down the slopes of the mountains of Patagonia, Aspen, British Columbia, and Alaska.

The essence of the film is to show how Rice and the company define the limits of what is possible in mountain freeride, explore heights, perform new tricks at incredible heights and fight with nature. The film was well-received by critics, and the audience gave it an average of 8.2 points on the world’s main film portal IMDB. Are you a fan of extreme sports too? If yes, check out the online sportsbook sites in the US. 22Bet Sportsbook has the best betting odds for all extreme sports.

The Fourth Phase and Volcanoes of Kamchatka

Immediately after the success of The Art of Flight, Rice began filming a new project, even more spectacular and grandiose. Rice talked about the new film this way: “I gathered everything I learned in my life to shoot this picture. It will be a dive into the snowy wilderness, where we will ride in places that no one has been before.” The film was called “The Fourth Phase” – in 2016, he repeated the success of his predecessor. This time, Rice and his comrades traveled all over the world, even visiting Kamchatka, where they swept along the slope of the volcano:

“We had a cool time filming the episode in Kamchatka. I knew about this place for a long time, and it has always been mysterious and attractive to me. I saw footage of other people snowboarding there. You look at the map and think: “How far is this?” But the fact that Kamchatka is the region with the largest number of volcanoes on the planet, including active ones, makes it unique.

It was very interesting for me to come and ride these volcanoes because it was clear that snowboarding in these places is very different from skiing in the mountains where I had already been. It was a unique opportunity and I wanted our team to take advantage of it. Now I want to go back. But the most vivid memory of the whole trip to Kamchatka for me was surfing. I carried the boards to Russia and we managed to find waves that I had never ridden before. We called them “bearskins” because of a crazy local guy. He tried to sell us a huge fur coat made of bear skin for two bottles of vodka, but we didn’t have any!”

Travis Rice Snowboarder’s Achievements

Few snowboarders on the planet are more famous than Travis. The list of sporting achievements of Travis is very long. Here are just his main achievements:

• Four X-Games medals in snowboarding (2 gold, silver, and bronze),
• first double cork in competition, 
• podium finish on every 6-star TTR-World Snowboard Federation, 
• shooting in 23 films in 15 years;
• two autobiographical films that revolutionized the way we look at snowboarding,
• participation in the Absinthe project, 
• appearance in the film “Deeper”, where his performance overshadowed all the others, 
• as well as awards and prizes from various publications: “snowboarders’ choice”, “readers’ choice”, the National Geographic Awards. 

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But competition medals are not the main challenge for Travis Rice snowboarder. Much more important is overcoming and victory over natural conditions. “Snowboarding is an art. You draw a line on pure snow, and you only have one chance to do it,” Rice lives for snowboarding, which is more than a sport for him. Bet on extreme sports, like skiing and snowboarding on 22Bet Sportsbook. The online gambling sites in the US have the largest range of winter sports.