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.

I'm really interested in revamping the Supernatural contest, so I'm going to put a lot of effort and energy into that going forward.

The Tokyo Dome Big Air contest (in 2003) was my first trip to Japan. I think I won it with a double back or something. Those events were fun. I was underaged, like 19 or 20, and going over to Japan in the very beginning was insane. It was amazing.

We faced blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, and of course dangerous snow conditions and vertiginous drops. That's what you get when you're working with fickle mother nature - you start out with a solid plan and it always changes, so you have to evolve and adapt.

I'm very much looking forward to doing nothing fixed, just riding for fun.

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

I knew Shin [Biyajima] a little bit early on, but it's funny because where I really met Shin, and where he made a strong impression on me, was in Jackson Hole. I sledded back to a secret zone way deep in the Jackson backcountry to some freeriding. I got out there and followed some snowmobile tracks figuring it's just some snowmobilers.