Every year, a small crew of women disappears into the sidecountry above Nelson, British Columbia, and comes out having changed what backcountry freestyle snowboarding looks like. Most of snow media is still talking about it in terms of dollar prizes and podium names. That’s missing the point.
The problem it was built to solve
Robin Van Gyn won the first-ever Natural Selection Tour in 2021. She also spent years watching that same tour invite far more men than women, year after year, not because the talent wasn’t there but because there was no clear way in. Backcountry freestyle asks a lot before you even get to the contest day. Avalanche training, terrain reading, snowpack knowledge, a powder board setup dialled for cliffs and chutes. Most riders never get the mentorship or access to build that skill set.
Van Gyn built Research and Development, RnD for short, to close that gap. First edition ran in March 2024 at Whitewater Mountain Resort, in Whitewater’s Trash Chutes, terrain that’s become legendary in its own right. Fourteen invited riders, a week of filming and mentorship, one jam-style contest day. Ellery Manning won it as an 18-year-old high schooler, her first pro-level event.
Photo: Andrew Miller & Jones Snowboards via whitewatermountainresort.com
What actually happens during RnD week
This isn’t a turn up and drop in event. Riders get two to three filming days scattered through the week, working alongside some of the best photographers and filmers in the sport, then one contest day where scores combine a rider’s best filmed clip with their best contest run. The format rewards the same things that matter in real backcountry riding: patience, line choice, adapting when the light or the snow won’t cooperate.
The mentorship is the part that doesn’t show up in a results sheet. Judges and coaches have included Hana Beaman, Leanne Pelosi, Marie-France Roy, and Kimmy Fasani, riders with decades in the terrain, teaching newer riders how to scope a line from across a valley or manage sluff on a wind-loaded slope. Former competitors keep coming back in different roles once they’ve aged out of the invite list. One 2024 rider returned in 2026 as the event’s massage therapist and mentor, still showing up for a community that isn’t really built around one contest day at all.
The pathway is now real
For its first two years, RnD sent a single winner through to the Natural Selection Tour. In 2026, that expanded to two spots plus an alternate, and Arc’teryx came on as title sponsor. Three riders have now progressed from RnD straight into NST competition since 2024, which is the actual proof of concept Van Gyn was chasing. Not a nice idea about opportunity, an established pipeline that resort and equal air time at the sport’s top level is starting to catch up to.
The 2026 edition ran fifteen riders through Whitewater in late February, with Amelia “Billy” Pelchat, a teenager who’d competed in a previous year, taking the win, and Japan’s Yuka Fujimori, who earned her invite through a regional video contest, in second. Both went on to compete at NST in Revelstoke days later.
Photo: Andrew Miller & Jones Snowboards via whitewatermountainresort.com
Why it matters beyond the results
RnD week now includes gear repair stations, backcountry clinics for riders wanting to move beyond resort boundaries, and community ride days that have nothing to do with who’s on the podium. It’s built a small town in Nelson into a genuine hub for women’s backcountry culture for one week a year, and the riders who don’t make the invite list keep finding their way back regardless.
Snowboarding has no shortage of contests chasing bigger prize purses and bigger names. RnD is doing something rarer: building the actual pathway that gets more women into the terrain in the first place. That’s worth more attention than it’s currently getting.
Watch this to get a feel for what the event is all about 👇
