The biggest "Super" thing happening this weekend

...and it's not the Superbowl! Bits and pieces have been flying around about the Red Bull Supernatural comp for a few months now, but this weekend it will all come to fruition. The Supernatural kicked off it's inaugural year at Baldface in British Columbia yesterday. Travis Rice began putting plans in motion after the Natural Selection comp held in Jackson four years back. The idea was to bring all the riders focused on backcountry filming and the young contest jibbers for a competition that brought both elements together.

 

After scouting locations from some time,  Rice and his crew chose the "Scary Cherry" face at Baldface knowing the elevation and northeastern facing aspect of the slope would allow the course to survive some warm spells or a week or two with no snow. The course was hand cut by Rice and a group of lumberjacks over the summer to have nearly 100 custom features from pillow lines and transfers to log ladders hung 30 feet in the trees. The slope starts at a steep 45 degree pitch slowly leveling out to 30 degrees further down with a massive kicker to powder midway. The whole run is almost a mile long.

Riders were not allowed any practice runs on the course and the starting order was determined by the ultimate woodsman contest Friday: made up of an ax throw, timed nail pound, and timed beacon search. The winner was allowed to call his drop-in position followed by the other riders in order with Lucas Debari taking that honor.

Saturday’s start order list is: 1. Scotty Lago 2. DCP 3. John Jackson 4. Lucas Debari 5. Terje 6. Mark Sollors 7. Nicolas Müller 8. Mark McMorris 9. Eero Niemala 10. Gigi Rüf 11. Mark Carter 12. Mark Landvik 13. Travis Rice 14. Sage Kotsenburg 15. Eric Jackson 16. Devun Walsh 17. Jake Blauvelt 18. Kazu Kokubo

Unsurprisingly, Travis took first place followed by backcountry big-hitters Gigi Ruf and Nicolas Muller. You can read all about their ridiculous runs here or you can wait to till March 31st to watch the whole thing go down on NBC.