Four Canadian athletes will advance to the Natural Selection Tour (NST) championship finals this Saturday in Revelstoke for a showdown between the world’s best backcountry snowboarders.
Two of them, both based in B.C. and new to NST, hope to stay true to themselves while riding the Mount Mackenzie powder on March 14, and score the men’s and women’s 2026 NST crown.
One is stoked to experience the course he helped design; the other aims to inspire women riders like herself.
Qualifying for finals
Mateo Massitti, originally from Canmore, Alta., but based in Revelstoke the last few years after moving from Whistler, finished with the fastest men’s time at the Day 1 competition Tuesday, March 10.
Traversing the far east side of Montana Bowl in the opening round, Massitti dropped a score of 87.3 with a clean frontside 540 off the upper feature.
“Some of the best snow I’ve ridden all season,” he remarked. “I don’t think it could’ve been much better.”
He heads to the finals, set for the latest NST date possible, alongside seven other men’s boarders, including Brin Alexander of Whistler and Mark McMorris of Saskatoon.
Eighteen-year-old Billy Pelchat, NST’s youngest competitor this year, hails from Whistler and also advances after scoring 80 in the second round Tuesday thanks to a cab 540 she pulled off.
Like Massitti, she’d never ridden the Montana Bowl face previously. But in 2025, Pelchat watched in awe as mentor Spencer O’Brien, last year’s women’s champion from Alert Bay on Vancouver Island, pulled off a cab 540 that inspired her stunt this year.
“That was a super fun jump and had a really good landing,” Pelchat said, adding that for her as a rookie, “it’s been a pretty big jump to come to this event.”
O’Brien didn’t qualify for this year’s finals, but Pelchat now heads to the women’s finals with Šárka Pančochová, Zoi Sadowski-Synnott and Madison Blackley. She plans to incorporate more freestyle finesse into her championship run.
“I just really want to push myself and try something out of my comfort zone,” Pelchat said.
She credited her older sister Juliette, who’s competing at the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics, as her biggest inspiration. Growing up, she’s also admired O’Brien for her confidence, “shredding” and advocacy for women’s snowboarding.
“She was passionate about it,” Pelchat recalled from her runs with O’Brien. “You never felt like a burden riding with her.”
Going forward, she wishes for other young women boarders that her success at NST can “make them realize how possible it is to chase your dreams — as long as you follow your goals and stay true to what you believe in.”
Pelchat gave a special shoutout to Research & Development, a women’s mentorship event for backcountry freestyle boarding that she qualified the NFT through. She said it was special to compete, learn and bond there with a dedicated group of women riders.
Designing the course
Behind the scenes, Massitti has played a pivotal role over the last two years in helping design Revelstoke’s NST course alongside another local competitor, Dustin Craven.
Though Craven was eliminated on Tuesday, and injured himself while descending the course, Massitti credited him as a pivotal reason for why he’s continued snowboarding.
At a competition in the mountains of New Zealand early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Massitti felt himself disconnecting from the competition and commercialization of the sport. He wanted “to get back to the roots of what snowboarding was,” and took inspiration from Craven’s freestyle filming in the backcountry.
“Growing up seeing Dustin’s footage, I just saw a new challenge,” Massitti said.
He met Craven on the Revelstoke slopes while they were both shooting for a film. Craven invited him to join the shoot for his short film OH MAN. Massitti gladly participated and was star-struck by his new mentor. Following that, Craven helped keep the snowboarding dream alive for Massitti, even when he considered quitting.
“My parents raised me (until I moved) to Whistler,” Massitti said, but “it just feels like he’s raised me the last four years.”
His bond with Craven goes deep. However, Massitti joked that Craven made a point of being nowhere near him during the competitors’ scouting of the course on Monday, March 9, to ensure they stay competitive.
Massitti said it’s been a dream job envisioning this year’s NST course on Montana Bowl’s far east side, which he started by designing the landmark Red Bull jump at the bottom.
“Since I was young, it felt like it would be so cool to design a course in the woods,” he reflected, adding he and Craven “have that eye for what could work.”
Still, Massitti gets to enjoy the course afresh as a rider. This is because he can’t anticipate his lines or predict how the snow will fill in each run he’s helped plan. He also simply hasn’t toured the Montana Bowl terrain previously.
“Never really took the time to go up there and ride it,” he admitted.
From his time in Revelstoke, Massitti values the community for helping him navigate ups and downs. He also appreciates how the town caters to non-professional snowboarders — especially when avid athletes are often busy working one or more jobs.
Massitti found a calling to move to Revelstoke because of how the mountains taught him to focus more on the terrain itself, rather than just the deep snow and vertical drop people always rave about. He hopes the town will remain humble, rather than turn into a full-blown resort community similar to Whistler.
“It’s straight up the people and how humble they are here,” he said about what makes Revelstoke special. “Minimal egos. That was really attractive for me.”
Safety in the backcountry
It’s been a heavy year so far for North America’s backcountry community.
Avalanches in 2026 have already killed one recreationist near Revelstoke, four more in B.C., one in Alberta and as many as 19 in the U.S., including nine who died in the Castle Peak snowslide near Lake Tahoe, Calif.
As a rider who’s seasoned in filming stunts in the backcountry, Massitti said it’s easy to overlook safety when the camera is rolling. Professional athletes can quickly feel unproductive, even lazy, if they’re not taking risks to get quality footage for films and social media, he explained.
While boarding last year along some aspects, Massitti “went to ride this pretty mellow slope, and the whole thing slid,” he recounted. “You’re there in that moment, you want to ride more, and it just goes over your head.”
He’s gotten better about taking extra precautions, such as wearing reflectors that would help rescue crews locate him after an avalanche and changing his approach to riding down slopes on dangerous aspects.
“You need to have these little scares to be able to step back,” he said, noting that what he cares about most is the longevity of his snowboarding career.
Pelchat acknowledged the ski patrol crews on site at Montana Bowl for their work at NST. She added that having mentors such as O’Brien to follow in the backcountry is important for building trust and safety while growing up riding.
Pelchat recounted the March 2025 avalanche near Kaslo that killed three men, including professional Whistler snowboarder Jeff Keenan. Being a Whistlerite, she knew him personally.
“For it to happen to someone who’s close to you, it can really put it into perspective of what could happen to you,” Pelchat said.
She’s participated in the weeklong Risk Maturity course at Baldface Lodge, which gave her a wake-up call to become better educated and prepared in backcountry safety.
Along with taking avalanche safety training and learning how to study snowpack, when riding it’s important “to make sure that you and your crew are on the same page in case anything goes wrong,” Pelchat said. “I’ve learned, too, just to trust your gut.”
‘It’s just snowboarding’
At the end of the day, riding “is such a small part of the grand picture of life,” Massitti reasoned, even if it brings him to mountains around the world and gives him a high quality of life.
“I kind of keep telling myself, ‘it’s just snowboarding,’” he said.
Despite the crowd cheering below and drones buzzing around him along the course Tuesday, Massitti found himself zoning out and not letting the craze get through to him during his run.
“I’m just trying to be myself,” he reasoned. “Just because 10,000 people are watching doesn’t mean I’m going to ride any differently.”
For the NST finals this Saturday, spectators can access the venue via Revelstoke Mountain Resort (RMR) by taking Revelation Gondola, riding the Stoke Chair — which reopened Thursday, March 12, after closing several days for gearbox repairs — and skiing down the Last Spike run.
More advanced access routes for skiers are via Jalapeño, Hot Sauce or Tally Ho Glades.
Avalanche gear is not required along the cat-groomed route provided, but attendees can look out for directional signage to guide them to the venue and are asked to turn off transceivers while within the Montana Bowl boundary.
To watch the livestream from elsewhere, visit RMR’s Paul Mair Plaza or tune in online via Red Bull TV at redbull.com/int-en/events/natural-selection-tour-snowboard.