Travis Rice is pretty much a household name in snowboarding right now. But where and how did the Jackson Hole, Wyoming local turned snowboard über-pro first spring into the limelight? Well, by no stretch of the imagination and in true Travis Rice fashion it was by going bigger and harder than everyone else…

In 2001, the now iconic ‘Transcendence’ was released by Absinthe movies and was the first fully international flick from the company. Regarded by many as Absinthe’s greatest film to date, it featured the riding of then still relatively unknown Gigi Ruf, Romain De Marchi and Nicolas Müller and also had an epic, surreal, Donnie Darko-esque ender by a 15 year old JP Solberg. And guess which bright eyed 18 year old got the opening section? Yep, it was our Travis. Spotted by one half of the Absinthe directing team Justin Hostynek sending it over a 117 ft hip at Superpark, Mammoth mountain, Travis was quickly snapped up by Hostynek and sent out to Alaska to film this opening part. To this day, that monstrous 117 foot backside rodeo remains one of Travis’ career defining tricks and more or less kickstarted the big, progressive kicker riding of the following decade.