Hiking Casper Bowl - © Scott Sullivan

It has been DUMPING at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort for the past week and the snow still has not let up. This is both good and bad for the Quiksilver Natural Selection, a Swatch TTR World Tour Four (4) Star Event, as the organizers have been waiting for optimal pow’ conditions, but the weather has been making visibility a bit tough to run the contest. So, it’s a good thing that the event organizers built in a seven-day holding period to make sure conditions are right.

With the contest on hold for the past three days, everyone in town for the event including the riders, media and judges have been out getting the goods. With over 50 inches of snow over the past week, it’s been an easy search for some epic pow’ lines.

“It’s been great over the past couple of days here in Jackson,” said Gigi Ruef, who’s been enjoying the conditions. “Just snowboarding with lots of friends and locals who showed us around the mountain and took us to some really nice terrain and really good snow.”

The event will take place in two separate sections of the mountain, Dick’s Ditch and Casper Bowl, which have been closed to the general public since January 25th to ensure perfect snow conditions. Day one of the contest (scheduled to get underway, Saturday, February 2nd) will kick off in Dick’s Ditch, a 2500-foot long gulley with 18 natural hits spread throughout. Riders will only have two runs, with no practice, to unleash their creativity on the run with judges looking at overall impression.

Travis - Tree ollie - © Scott Sullivan

Leubke - Logslide - © Scott Sullivan

The second day of competition (scheduled for Monday, February 4th, but is subject to change depending on weather) will go down in Casper’s Bowl, one of Travis Rice’s favorite runs on the hill. The Casper run is a wide-open 2500-foot long bowl with cliffs, rock drops, boulders and hips. Again, judges will be looking at overall impression with riders taking two runs apiece.

The contest is sure to be one for the history books with some of the best and most creative riders ready to shred one of the most storied mountains in North America, including legendary shredder Nicolas Mueller who claimed “It’s been so fun over the past couple of days. Yesterday was one of the best days ever. We got an early gondola ride up to get the goods. The snow is so good.” Over three-years in the works, everyone here in Jackson is hyped for the event especially with no other snowboard competition out there that is quite like the Natural Selection.

Nic Muller - Pow Jump - © Scott Sullivan

Stay tuned for more updates from the Quiksilver Natural Selection and be sure to check out www.quiksilver.com/naturalselection for news and video updates direct from Jackson Hole, and the Quiksilver Natural Selection Event Bio page on TTR for more info.