1.
Ya know it's funny, what's happening to us. Our lives have become digital. Our friends, now virtual. And, anything you could ever wanna know is just a click away. Experiencing the world through second hand information isn't enough. If we want authenticity we have to initiate it. We will never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it. It's this self-discovery that inevitably takes us to the wildest places on earth.
Travis Rice
2.
When it comes down to it, it’s pretty simple. Adventure is what you make it. And whether it’s the travel, the discovery or just the feeling of letting go, the only way we’ll ever find out is to get out there and do it. Enjoy the ride.
Travis Rice
3.
We will never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it. It's this self discovery that inevitably takes us to the wildest places on earth.
Travis Rice
4.
We'll never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it.
Travis Rice
Discover our ultimate capacity by propelling ourselves to uncover it.
5.
I wouldn't even call snowboarding a sport. For me it's just a way of life. It's a chance to finally shut your brain off, and live within the moment. And, for as long as I am able, I will ride until the day I die.
Travis Rice
6.
It’s not the destination but the adventure along the way.
Travis Rice
Journey not goal is the thrill.
7.
Experiencing the world through Endless secondhand information isn't enough. If we want authenticity we have to initiate it.
Travis Rice
Exploring the world through inexhaustible indirect knowledge is insufficient. If we yearn for genuineness we must instigate it.
8.
Now you're gonna take beatings. It's written in our DNA, you know. You're gonna go down. You get up, it's that simple.
Travis Rice
9.
If we want authenticity we have to initiate it.
Travis Rice
10.
If we want authenticity, we have to initiate it. Self-discovery takes us to the wildest places on earth
Travis Rice
11.
What is snowboarding to me? I'd say it's when I feel passion. That is, if passion is a combination of utter joy, frustration and rage. It's my life.
Travis Rice
12.
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.
Travis Rice
13.
You know, I wouldn't even call snowboarding a sport, you know for me it's just a way of life
Travis Rice
14.
Bryan [Iguchi] had this beautiful philosophy about our connection with these incredible cycles. There's a line from one of his poems that always stays with me about 'This process we follow; this cycle we ride' and it's almost become a strap line for the film.
Travis Rice
15.
When your location is a snowy mountain in the winter the obstacles are pretty extreme.
Travis Rice
16.
I find I enjoy myself most on those days when it's just me and a couple close friends away from it all. True human interaction in a day when we are all spread so thin.
Travis Rice
17.
Inevitably it's always a set-up; you go somewhere, bring your own expectations, you think you have an idea of what you want to do but then the minute you get there everything changes, so trying to work with people who are able to ride in a lot of different conditions, sub-par conditions, people who are able to make the most of any situation.
Travis Rice
18.
Don't hurry, don't worry, and don't forget to smell the flowers.
Travis Rice
19.
We're all doing what we love. It's how we express ourselves - operating in a space where you don't know if something is possible or not.
Travis Rice
20.
Ultimately it's a snowboarding film [Fourth Phase], of course, so the main thing that we wanted to celebrate was how awesome snowboarding is! Secondly, we wanted to celebrate the environment that we all shape our lives around. So the film documents myself and other like-minded individuals attempting to follow the hydrological cycles that shape the worlds we've committed our lives to.
Travis Rice
21.
We were looking at weather and our relationships with weather. It goes to a few other places, and I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't go into it, but it's about a willingness to expose oneself a little bit more and share something openly and honestly. It's more than just landing tricks. Moving forward, this is just another stepping stone.
Travis Rice
22.
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.
Travis Rice
23.
Sometimes storms come through with wind and blow the features off or sometimes they come in heavy and grow the features to the point where we have to shovel them off again. Leading up to the window for our event we try to get everything lined up and safe for the riders.
Travis Rice
24.
I actually enjoyed getting lost in Japan's backroads, finding myself in a wasabi farm.
Travis Rice
25.
There's no doubt 'normal' is changing - spring actually came a month early in Alaska, for example, and we had to stop filming.
Travis Rice
26.
My dad really wanted to learn how to sail and, when I was 16, he became a quarter partner in this small, 24-foot trimaran.Three weeks a year, I'd go with him and we'd sail from Florida out around the Bahamas.
Travis Rice
27.
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.
Travis Rice
28.
I'm passionate about capturing amazing snowboarding action. I get so much out of the artistic endeavor of even getting one amazing shot in a pristine environment, using specialist cameras to showcase how fun and dynamic snowboarding is. That's what I live for.
Travis Rice
29.
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.
Travis Rice
30.
I think it mostly comes down to trying to align with people who are down with a mission and will bring optimism.
Travis Rice
31.
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.
Travis Rice
32.
When I finally got to go ride the mountains in Japan, it blew my mind.
Travis Rice
33.
I've been to Japan so many times, but I still constantly stumble across things that are so foreign to me.
Travis Rice
34.
What you ride and how you choose to ride is such a dynamic part of what this contest [ Ultra Natural] is built for.
Travis Rice
35.
One of the proudest things for me with this film [The Fourth Phase] is that year after year we put ourselves right out there making it and no one got seriously injured.
Travis Rice
36.
Apart from those other riders there is a whole production team [ of The Fourth Phase] behind the cameras too, hauling hundreds of kilos of fragile and awkward filming equipment up those same frozen landscapes. They're the real heroes.
Travis Rice
37.
We needed to do "Community Project" to feel comfortable doing our own thing, and then "That's It That's All" was this experiment with camera technology and shooting snowboarding a little differently. "Art of Flight" was that dream of "That's it That's All" realized. Then we didn't want to make an "Art of Flight 2," so we stepped back and tried to take a different approach to create a more multi-faceted film. "The Fourth Phase" has more of a storyline, and it was much more personal for me.
Travis Rice
38.
Over the past six years, my girlfriend and I live on our boat two or three months a year. It's just one of our seasonal homes at this point.
Travis Rice
39.
It's probably the most personal project [The Fourth Phase] I've done, which changed the dynamic a little bit.
Travis Rice
40.
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.
Travis Rice
41.
It would be really nice to have a venue stop in Japan someday. Japan would be perfect for it.
Travis Rice
42.
I was pretty blown away by how vast and aggressive the terrain is in the Japanese Alps. You're looking up at peaks, and it's like Alaska seeing all kinds of amazing stuff that looks ridable, but it's 70 percent death defying; only a small percentage really goes.
Travis Rice
43.
They were all just chapters in the book, stepping stones. Each was perfect for where we were at the time, and I'm proud of them all. We couldn't have done this film [The Fourth Phase] without the other films pre-dating it and being part of the process.
Travis Rice
44.
Shin [Biyajima] rides down with this big ol' Japanese grin and giggle and I'm like what? Two years later, when I started planning the trip, I knew Shin was from the Hakuba area, and I didn't want to come film in Japan without a Japanese rider. Shin had the time and availability, and it worked out perfect.
Travis Rice
45.
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.
Travis Rice
46.
Even getting one amazing shot in a pristine environment is what I live for.
Travis Rice
47.
I realized pretty quickly just how big and aggressive some of the mountains were down in Nagano Prefecture.
Travis Rice
48.
The whole goal with this thing [Ultra Natural] from the start was to really let rider's style define them and their line choice.
Travis Rice
49.
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.
Travis Rice
50.
I'm very much looking forward to doing nothing fixed, just riding for fun.
Travis Rice