Cool as Rice

The freestyle snowboarder Travis Rice survived a ruptured spleen and an avalanche – and still likes to jump where no one has ever jumped before.

His performance at the Air & Style 2005 in Munich was a perfect example of Travis Rice’s take on fun in the snow: he went a little overboard. Right in the second round, the 23-year-old American tried a risky double backflip and landed on his rear end – which lost him the knockout duel but won him the hearts of the audience. Crowds like Travis Rice’s attitude toward compromise, which can be best described like this: Travis wins or Travis crashes.

Doable Insanity

Travis Rice enjoys trying things no one else has ever tried. For the 2004 video production “Pop,” for example, he became the first person to jump Chad’s Gap in Mammoth Falls, Utah, which had always been considered unjumpable. It was a good thing Travis made it: Chad’s Gap is 35 meters across and only a little less deep. Travis flew over it with what insiders call a switch 5, a one-and-a-half-turn jump started backwards.

Other riders reconstructed that stunt in 2005 and, using radar equipment, determined that you need to launch at a speed of at least 85 kph in order not to crash and burn on the opposite wall. Travis’ analysis of Chad’s Gap requires less math: “I would often ride on the chairlift and check out the terrain. I thought it must be doable without breaking your neck.” When Travis Rice was asked once about how he deals with risk, he didn’t give the typical cool-athlete response of “no risk, no fun.” He said, “I don’t give a f ...” Travis doesn’t bother much with safety considerations, although he’s had enough reason to: when he was 16 he spent six days in the intensive care unit with a ruptured spleen. In 2004 he kicked off an avalanche in Alaska that dragged him 600 meters down the mountainside – and he emerged from the mass of snow not only alive but, aside from a few sprains, uninjured.

The Style of Angels

Travis grew up with skis on his feet. His father was on the ski patrol. At first Travis thought snowboarding was pretty lame, but then a friend showed him a few tricks. It was falling and hurting his wrists and backside that made him eager for more. “Just going through that whole learning process for me was fun.” The learning process paid off: Travis won the 2001 Superpark competition, the Slopestyle competition of the 2002 X-Games, the 2004 Big Air event in Tokyo’s Nissan Dome and the Quarterpipe event at the Arctic Jam 2003 and 2004. He is also one of the most stylistically influential riders in Slopestyle, Big air and Halfpipe. “I developed this style partially on the ungroomed slopes at home in the backwoods of Wyoming,” says Travis. His first encounter with groomed snow made a lasting impression, as he told “Snowboarder Magazine”: “I remember finally finding the freshly groomed park and pipe that first morning and hearing angelic voices in my head, ‘Aaaaaahhhhh’. I was enlightened.”