Natural Selection Thread

BigPurpleSkiSuit

BigPurpleSkiSuit

Active member
I know this is snowboarding, but this is actually the sickest event and we need something like it in skiing. Holy shit what a great format, I mean imagine seeing Colby Stevenson going up against Candide in a backcountry freestyle terrain park, that's what this is goddamn.
 
I feel like snowboarding in general has way more and better events. Idk if its red bull supporting snowboarding a ton more but damn would be sick to have the same for skiers
 
Such a dope event but man the announcers and interviewers are god awful for this event. I was cringing through 90% of the commentary and there was a ton of it. And I know the snow was variable, I hate to be that guy, but the women's side for Natural Selection was hard to watch (and it was pretty rough last season too). Marion was the only one who could even ride down the whole course. Such a bummer to watch them fall on literally every single hit. Especially since they were bombing out the landings for everyone else after. They looked scared to ride and kept putting themselves in the back seat before every air, not even giving themselves a chance to actually land. Even vets like Hana and Robin just couldn't hold it together and they've ridden the course before. Definitely missing Zoe from the lineup. She threw down at Jackson last year.
 
14385917:AndrewGravesSV said:
I feel like snowboarding in general has way more and better events. Idk if its red bull supporting snowboarding a ton more but damn would be sick to have the same for skiers
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I been saying that the snowboard community is cooler but no one here will admit it
 
conditions were so bad haha i had a little bit of schadenfreude watching danny davis mic'd up grunting and eating it on basically every hit but stopped watching after that
 
Just ate some delicious home cooked gourmet burgers and drank some high west and remembered there was a whole second heat of this I didn't watch this morning. Life is pretty damn good right now NGL
 
Anyone know if the hits are open post event or if they bamboo most of thrm off? It'd be sick to roll up to Jackson hole during a storm cycle in February and give it a go.

Baldface stop is going back to the OG course this year. They've tweaked some hits to make it more manageable cause the top of the course is so steep. I'm stoked for that.

Travis went beast mode on his last run. Needed redemption after last year apparently.
 
100% thought this was a thread talking about how you “can’t fix stupid” and would have videos of people failing around at ski resorts

turns out I’m the stupid one
 
14386166:Jems said:
I been saying that the snowboard community is cooler but no one here will admit it
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Credit where credit is due, a lot of freestyle ski culture has been taken from snowboarding. Not saying that historically snowboarding hasn't gotten inspiration from skiing, but its pretty one sided imo
 
14386161:mnosbod said:
Definitely missing Zoe from the lineup. She threw down at Jackson last year.
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agreed.

14386243:Drail said:
Anyone know if the hits are open post event or if they bamboo most of thrm off? It'd be sick to roll up to Jackson hole during a storm cycle in February and give it a go.
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Yes. It's open. And jackson has funny boo. You can pass closed 'signs', as long as there isn't a rope line...
 
Tanner could make something sick happen with the backcountry rippers. Steezy Sammy C,Sam Kuch, Bushywayne, Abma. Bring back the king of huck Seth Morrison! I’m not dropping many names but it could be a super heavy event. That would be sick!
 
I also found the commentary cringe and was surprised at how bad the women’s side was. For professionals that apparently ride year round and everyday, regardless of conditions, this was not a good standard.

14386161:mnosbod said:
Such a dope event but man the announcers and interviewers are god awful for this event. I was cringing through 90% of the commentary and there was a ton of it. And I know the snow was variable, I hate to be that guy, but the women's side for Natural Selection was hard to watch (and it was pretty rough last season too). Marion was the only one who could even ride down the whole course. Such a bummer to watch them fall on literally every single hit. Especially since they were bombing out the landings for everyone else after. They looked scared to ride and kept putting themselves in the back seat before every air, not even giving themselves a chance to actually land. Even vets like Hana and Robin just couldn't hold it together and they've ridden the course before. Definitely missing Zoe from the lineup. She threw down at Jackson last year.
Click to expand...
 
14385917:AndrewGravesSV said:
I feel like snowboarding in general has way more and better events. Idk if its red bull supporting snowboarding a ton more but damn would be sick to have the same for skiers
Click to expand...

Yeah freestyle/freeride snowboarding is supported more by sponsors because it's just way more mainstream and popular than free skiing. Just look at the view counts on all the X games events, the snowboarding ones consistently get way more views than the skiing ones. This is kind of surprising because I know that all the hills I've been to have had way more skiers than snowboarders that ski the park and do freeride, but I guess casual unassociated viewers prefer watching snowboarding for some reason.

As a very biased skier, I'd much prefer watching people ski down this kind of course. It's just physically easier to control skis in freeride terrain with booters like this, which shows with all of the crazy washed out landings and sideslipping you see in natural selection. Leaning back on the heel edge after every single hit to kill speed just doesn't look that great imo.

Probably shouldn't make it a skiing vs snowboarding thing, but it's hard not to when snowboarding gets so much more funding and support for events like this. In all honesty, it's awesome when either gets the opportunity to do an event like this and we should be happy for any free snowsports content, especially something as rad as natural selection.
 
14386476:Mr.Lumpyjumbles said:
Yeah freestyle/freeride snowboarding is supported more by sponsors because it's just way more mainstream and popular than free skiing. Just look at the view counts on all the X games events, the snowboarding ones consistently get way more views than the skiing ones. This is kind of surprising because I know that all the hills I've been to have had way more skiers than snowboarders that ski the park and do freeride, but I guess casual unassociated viewers prefer watching snowboarding for some reason.

As a very biased skier, I'd much prefer watching people ski down this kind of course. It's just physically easier to control skis in freeride terrain with booters like this, which shows with all of the crazy washed out landings and sideslipping you see in natural selection. Leaning back on the heel edge after every single hit to kill speed just doesn't look that great imo.

Probably shouldn't make it a skiing vs snowboarding thing, but it's hard not to when snowboarding gets so much more funding and support for events like this. In all honesty, it's awesome when either gets the opportunity to do an event like this and we should be happy for any free snowsports content, especially something as rad as natural selection.
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I think the big thing is we don't have someone like Travis Rice in skiing who is not only a huge mainstream talent on the competition and film side, but also has the business acumen to come up with unique events like this AND actually make them happen. There's been some cool invitational park setups in the past but nothing to the degree of Natural Selection. Natural Selection is his brainchild and the dude literally took time to personally work with the engineers and workers on the ground to hand build features. There is no one doing that for skiing currently. Tanner is a great rider but he doesn't have the same intelligence and wherewithal to put something like this together. He's a diehard competitor but not a creator.

**This post was edited on Jan 26th 2022 at 10:41:52am
 
Also pretty sure T-Rice has been waiting to redo this event since like 2013 which is a long time to get the right venues, sponsors and riders.

Also NFT's

**This post was edited on Jan 26th 2022 at 8:54:16pm
 
14386476:Mr.Lumpyjumbles said:
Yeah freestyle/freeride snowboarding is supported more by sponsors because it's just way more mainstream and popular than free skiing. Just look at the view counts on all the X games events, the snowboarding ones consistently get way more views than the skiing ones. This is kind of surprising because I know that all the hills I've been to have had way more skiers than snowboarders that ski the park and do freeride, but I guess casual unassociated viewers prefer watching snowboarding for some reason.

As a very biased skier, I'd much prefer watching people ski down this kind of course. It's just physically easier to control skis in freeride terrain with booters like this, which shows with all of the crazy washed out landings and sideslipping you see in natural selection. Leaning back on the heel edge after every single hit to kill speed just doesn't look that great imo.

Probably shouldn't make it a skiing vs snowboarding thing, but it's hard not to when snowboarding gets so much more funding and support for events like this. In all honesty, it's awesome when either gets the opportunity to do an event like this and we should be happy for any free snowsports content, especially something as rad as natural selection.
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I would almost disagree that it's easier to navigate on skis, you would pretty much be eliminating most switch landings. Hitting a jump switch would be a bit tough as well. So you're kinda down to 3's, 7's and flip variations....

Skiing kinda needs a T-rice, Candide/tanner kinda do it in their own ways, like Candide doing ridiculous tricks off natural hits around the resort. That might even be a good contest, Candide invitational in LaClusaz? and they shape up some of the hits around the hill and everyone gets a run from top to bottom?
 
14387359:Rusticles said:
Skiing kinda needs a T-rice, Candide/tanner kinda do it in their own ways, like Candide doing ridiculous tricks off natural hits around the resort. That might even be a good contest, Candide invitational in LaClusaz? and they shape up some of the hits around the hill and everyone gets a run from top to bottom?
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Red Bull organized a contest like that last year called Infinite Lines but there's barely been any traces of the existence of this contest, and nobody really did hear about it.

**This post was edited on Jan 27th 2022 at 5:47:40pm
 
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