Travis Rice quotes:

I wouldn't even call snowboarding a sport. For me it's just a way of life. It's a chance to finally shut your brain off, and live within the moment. And, for as long as I am able, I will ride until the day I die.

We will never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it. It's this self discovery that inevitably takes us to the wildest places on earth.

I was pretty blown away by how vast and aggressive the terrain is in the Japanese Alps. You're looking up at peaks, and it's like Alaska seeing all kinds of amazing stuff that looks ridable, but it's 70 percent death defying; only a small percentage really goes.

Apart from those other riders there is a whole production team [ of The Fourth Phase] behind the cameras too, hauling hundreds of kilos of fragile and awkward filming equipment up those same frozen landscapes. They're the real heroes.

Experiencing the world through Endless secondhand information isn't enough. If we want authenticity we have to initiate it.

My dad really wanted to learn how to sail and, when I was 16, he became a quarter partner in this small, 24-foot trimaran.Three weeks a year, I'd go with him and we'd sail from Florida out around the Bahamas.

We'll never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it.

I actually enjoyed getting lost in Japan's backroads, finding myself in a wasabi farm.

I find I enjoy myself most on those days when it's just me and a couple close friends away from it all. True human interaction in a day when we are all spread so thin.

I'm very much looking forward to doing nothing fixed, just riding for fun.

It's probably the most personal project [The Fourth Phase] I've done, which changed the dynamic a little bit.

Bryan [Iguchi] had this beautiful philosophy about our connection with these incredible cycles. There's a line from one of his poems that always stays with me about 'This process we follow; this cycle we ride' and it's almost become a strap line for the film.

I knew I wanted to shoot in Japan early on. Years ago, we did a Japan segment in "The Community Project," and at the time I felt it was one of the better Japan segments ever captured.

I'm really interested in revamping the Supernatural contest, so I'm going to put a lot of effort and energy into that going forward.

It was just on a whole other level, getting to experience and ride that terrain. We spent a fair amount of time in the Hakuba Valley.

It would be really nice to have a venue stop in Japan someday. Japan would be perfect for it.

It's not the destination but the adventure along the way.

I've been to Japan so many times, but I still constantly stumble across things that are so foreign to me.

I love to snowboard with no cameras: 100 percent.

Being out on the ocean seems like a different world to being in the mountains and the backcountry, but there is also a lot of symmetry. They each have their own biorhythms from a motherly embrace to tempestuous wrath. What I love about being out in nature is that you are at the mercy of your own decision making.

Don't hurry, don't worry, and don't forget to smell the flowers.

Even getting one amazing shot in a pristine environment is what I live for.

I knew Shin [Biyajima] a little bit early on, but it's funny because where I really met Shin, and where he made a strong impression on me, was in Jackson Hole. I sledded back to a secret zone way deep in the Jackson backcountry to some freeriding. I got out there and followed some snowmobile tracks figuring it's just some snowmobilers.

I realized pretty quickly just how big and aggressive some of the mountains were down in Nagano Prefecture.

I think it mostly comes down to trying to align with people who are down with a mission and will bring optimism.

I was picking up surfing, which I also fell in love with. Then I was like, man, to combine the two [free ride and surfing ] would be perfect.

If we want authenticity we have to initiate it.

If we want authenticity, we have to initiate it. Self-discovery takes us to the wildest places on earth

I'm passionate about capturing amazing snowboarding action. I get so much out of the artistic endeavor of even getting one amazing shot in a pristine environment, using specialist cameras to showcase how fun and dynamic snowboarding is. That's what I live for.

Inevitably it's always a set-up; you go somewhere, bring your own expectations, you think you have an idea of what you want to do but then the minute you get there everything changes, so trying to work with people who are able to ride in a lot of different conditions, sub-par conditions, people who are able to make the most of any situation.

Now you're gonna take beatings. It's written in our DNA, you know. You're gonna go down. You get up, it's that simple.

One of the deep routed motivations for looking at our connection to snow and its journey to our mountains came from Bryan Iguchi, who I rode with a lot when I was just a teenager.

One of the proudest things for me with this film [The Fourth Phase] is that year after year we put ourselves right out there making it and no one got seriously injured.

Over the past six years, my girlfriend and I live on our boat two or three months a year. It's just one of our seasonal homes at this point.

Pretty much everywhere we went we had crazy weather. I think Russia was probably one of the toughest places for us weatherwise, but even Alaska, the last three years have been somewhat subpar when you look at historically how Alaska can shape up.

Shin [Biyajima] rides down with this big ol' Japanese grin and giggle and I'm like what? Two years later, when I started planning the trip, I knew Shin was from the Hakuba area, and I didn't want to come film in Japan without a Japanese rider. Shin had the time and availability, and it worked out perfect.

The idea [of the Fourth Phase ] was that by taking a closer look at where our weather comes from, and the processes involved in making it, we could all walk away with a greater appreciation of water in its various magical forms.

The Tokyo Dome Big Air contest (in 2003) was my first trip to Japan. I think I won it with a double back or something. Those events were fun. I was underaged, like 19 or 20, and going over to Japan in the very beginning was insane. It was amazing.

There's no doubt 'normal' is changing - spring actually came a month early in Alaska, for example, and we had to stop filming.

They were all just chapters in the book, stepping stones. Each was perfect for where we were at the time, and I'm proud of them all. We couldn't have done this film [The Fourth Phase] without the other films pre-dating it and being part of the process.

Ultimately it's a snowboarding film [Fourth Phase], of course, so the main thing that we wanted to celebrate was how awesome snowboarding is! Secondly, we wanted to celebrate the environment that we all shape our lives around. So the film documents myself and other like-minded individuals attempting to follow the hydrological cycles that shape the worlds we've committed our lives to.

We faced blizzards, sub-zero temperatures, and of course dangerous snow conditions and vertiginous drops. That's what you get when you're working with fickle mother nature - you start out with a solid plan and it always changes, so you have to evolve and adapt.

We needed to do "Community Project" to feel comfortable doing our own thing, and then "That's It That's All" was this experiment with camera technology and shooting snowboarding a little differently. "Art of Flight" was that dream of "That's it That's All" realized. Then we didn't want to make an "Art of Flight 2," so we stepped back and tried to take a different approach to create a more multi-faceted film. "The Fourth Phase" has more of a storyline, and it was much more personal for me.

We pretty much had crazy weather, historically speaking, in every location we filmed [The Fourth Phase]. Nothing has been normal in the past three years.

We started out making a film [ The Fourth Phase] about the incredible snow we get at home in Wyoming, the journey soon macroed out into this epic 16,000 mile trip around the North Pacific, taking us to locations in Japan, Alaska, the Kamchatka Peninsula in far-eastern Russia, and back to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

We were looking at weather and our relationships with weather. It goes to a few other places, and I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't go into it, but it's about a willingness to expose oneself a little bit more and share something openly and honestly. It's more than just landing tricks. Moving forward, this is just another stepping stone...

We're all doing what we love. It's how we express ourselves - operating in a space where you don't know if something is possible or not.

What is snowboarding to me? I'd say it's when I feel passion. That is, if passion is a combination of utter joy, frustration and rage. It's my life.

When I finally got to go ride the mountains in Japan, it blew my mind.

When it comes down to it, it's pretty simple. Adventure is what you make it. And whether it's the travel, the discovery or just the feeling of letting go, the only way we'll ever find out is to get out there and do it. Enjoy the ride.

When your location is a snowy mountain in the winter the obstacles are pretty extreme.

While researching the project [The Fourth Phase] I stumbled across this amazing research by a scientist called Dr Gerard Pollack who had done studies on what he called a 'fourth phase' of water.

Ya know it's funny, what's happening to us. Our lives have become digital. Our friends, now virtual. And, anything you could ever wanna know is just a click away. Experiencing the world through second hand information isn't enough. If we want authenticity we have to initiate it. We will never know our full potential unless we push ourselves to find it. It's this self-discovery that inevitably takes us to the wildest places on earth.

You know, I wouldn't even call snowboarding a sport, you know for me it's just a way of life