What you ride and how you choose to ride is such a dynamic part of what this contest [ Ultra Natural] is built for.

The whole goal with this thing [Ultra Natural] from the start was to really let rider's style define them and their line choice.

It was just on a whole other level, getting to experience and ride that terrain. We spent a fair amount of time in the Hakuba Valley.

You know, I wouldn't even call snowboarding a sport, you know for me it's just a way of life

One of the deep routed motivations for looking at our connection to snow and its journey to our mountains came from Bryan Iguchi, who I rode with a lot when I was just a teenager.

We started out making a film [ The Fourth Phase] about the incredible snow we get at home in Wyoming, the journey soon macroed out into this epic 16,000 mile trip around the North Pacific, taking us to locations in Japan, Alaska, the Kamchatka Peninsula in far-eastern Russia, and back to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Being out on the ocean seems like a different world to being in the mountains and the backcountry, but there is also a lot of symmetry. They each have their own biorhythms from a motherly embrace to tempestuous wrath. What I love about being out in nature is that you are at the mercy of your own decision making.