Watching Natural Selection Has Triggered Me
This event flicks a switch that makes me want to take an adventure.
The event blows my mind for several reasons. First, obviously, the riding. Watching athletes choose lines down enormous natural terrain and push the limits of what is possible on a snowboard is incredible. But it’s not just the riding that makes the event compelling. The way it’s presented, particularly the drone footage, offers a unique perspective on decision making. You can actually see the terrain unfolding beneath the rider in real time, which makes the viewing experience dynamic and immersive. The CREDO judging format rewards creativity and that’s the essence of snowboarding in my eyes.
But for me, something else happens while watching. I start looking beyond the athletes.
The Landscape Becomes the Star
The event location is as captivating as the riding itself. The Natural Selection events held around Revelstoke showcase one of the most dramatic mountain landscapes in the world. The surrounding ranges of the Rocky Mountains stretch endlessly, creating terrain that looks both intimidating and inviting at the same time.
From the perspective of someone sitting in Sydney, Australia after a belting hot summer, this environment feels almost mythical. We’re a long way from big mountain snowboarding down here. Perhaps you always want what you don’t have, and if that’s true, then British Columbia certainly delivers.
Watching the event simply makes me want to go snowboarding.
Not in the same way the athletes are riding, of course. Launching my ageing carcass into a backflip off a cliff is not in the repertoire. But the terrain surrounding Revelstoke looks extraordinary. It feels like the kind of place where simply being there would be enough.
Having gone through there in my twenties there’s some nostalgic rearview mirror stuff going on too.
Age Shapes the Dream
Getting long in the tooth changes how you interpret events like this. If you’re twenty years old watching Natural Selection, you’re probably thinking: Get me into that terrain. To do this you might want to find a job working on the hill, maybe loading Stoke chairs or bussing tables at night, just to ride as much as possible. You’re willing to sleep in a van, stay out until the bar closes, post up in the local library, and chase snow every day.
At fifty, the thinking is slightly different.
You’re still inspired by the terrain, but your approach is more considered. You start wondering whether you could justify a trip that includes a few days riding the resort, maybe even a day with Selkirk Tangiers Heli Skiing to experience the deeper backcountry. Perhaps while you’re there you’d explore a few other places nearby such as the surrounding Kicking Horse or Boulder resorts, the mountain towns, the wider landscape. In both cases, the event sparks the same desire.
You want to go.
When Spectacle Meets Tourism
Events like Natural Selection are often the gateway to actually pulling the trigger on a trip. The event itself is a perfect showcase. The weather window is selected carefully. The riders are the best in the world. The cinematography is flawless. Everything is tuned to perfection. It’s essentially a trophy case for the sport and the location.
The sponsors surrounding the event reflect this perfectly. Brands like YETI, Arc’teryx, Red Bull and Oakley sit alongside tourism organisations like Tourism Revelstoke and partners such as Revelstoke Mountain Resort.
The event showcases people, culture, locations, equipment and atmosphere.
It makes you think: I want some of that.
Yet once the broadcast ends, there’s an interesting gap.
Inspiration Doesn’t Easily Become Action
None of the sponsors actually help me get there. No one helps me translate the inspiration of the event into a real trip.
From my desk in Sydney, planning a journey to a place like Revelstoke is not straightforward. Flights, weather windows, accommodation, car rentals, lift tickets and guiding options all have to be pieced together individually.
And if you’re trying to plan around snow conditions, which are everything in boardriding sports like snowboarding or surfing, it becomes even more complicated. This is where an interesting opportunity appears.
The Opportunity for Events to Gateway a Travel Services
Deliver me the travel service tailored specifically for board riders. Not a generic travel agent, but a platform or consultancy that understands surf forecasts, snow conditions, swell windows and mountain weather patterns.
This service will demand answers to questions such as:
- How do you ride?
- What terrain excites you?
- How much comfort do you want?
- How flexible are your dates?
Then it builds an itinerary around those answers. For someone watching Natural Selection, that service might translate inspiration into something tangible: a week riding around Revelstoke, perhaps a guided backcountry day, maybe a heli-ski experience, and a few days exploring nearby resorts.
It wouldn’t just be booking flights and hotels. It would be curating an experience around the culture of board riding itself.
From Watching to Going
The reality may simply be that most people are happy to watch these events from the comfort of their lounge room. But I’m not convinced that’s entirely true. When I watch a surfing event at Jeffreys Bay during a World Surf League broadcast, I immediately want to surf that wave. It’s one of the most iconic coastlines in the world.
The problem isn’t inspiration. The problem is execution.
How do you actually make it happen? Having been to JBay in my twenties, I could do it as a wandering surfer, though now older, wiser, with actual some finance – it’s somehow harder.
An Event Extension Worth Exploring
Perhaps the next evolution of event sponsorship isn’t just equipment and apparel brands. Maybe it’s the integration of services that help viewers move from watching to experiencing. Because events like the Natural Selection Tour don’t just showcase athletes.
They showcase places.
And sometimes the most powerful response to watching something extraordinary isn’t simply wanting to ride like the athletes. It’s wanting to go there yourself and interpret the lines of Montana Bowl your own way. Often the venue and environment is the hero. So the real question might be this:
When you watch Natural Selection, does it make you want to go snowboarding — or does it make you want to go to Revelstoke, British Columbia Canada?



