Vote for the X-Games Real Snow Backcountry Fan Favorite

The X-Games Real Snow Backcountry contest pushes an often-unseen aspect of snowboarding into the mainstream. It's no secret: many of our favorite snowboard parts and videos are filmed out of the resorts—either in the streets or in the backcountry.

And though backcountry competitions exist, they aren't exactly friendly to spectators: you’ve got the steep and gnarly Freeride World Tour on one side and rare competitions like Travis Rice’s freestyle-oriented Ultranatural on the other. But even these contest formats don’t embody the entirety of a backcountry rider’s season the way that a magical video part does.

Real Snow changes up the game, pitting five of the top BC riders in the world against each other.  The format? A sub-2 minute video part filmed entirely in the backcountry.

The Contestants:

Mikkel Bang:

Age: 25
Hometown: Oslo, Norway

The youngest of the five riders selected, the Norwegian’s spin-heavy part also features one particularly heavy line 45 seconds in. 

Kazu Kokubo:

Age: 27
Hometown: Ishikari, Hokkaido, Japan

The Japanese ruffian oozes with style as he liquidates natural features and throws tweaked grabs with precision. Definitely a favorite in this year’s competition.

John Jackson

Age: 32
Hometown: Crowley Lake, California

Set to a dubby reggae track, John Jackson boosts off huge natural lips and booters. The POV footage adds some scope to the size (and consequences) of these lines. 

Gigi Rüf

Age: 34
Hometown: Bregenzerwald, Austria

Named 2014’s "Rider of the Year" by both TransWorld Snowboarding and Snowboarder Magazine, the Austrian’s part is flowy, stylish and surreal. Gigi’s slaying these lines on his own board brand and we wager he’ll take home top honors this year.

Jeremy Jones:

Age: 40
Hometown: Truckee, California

Of course Jeremy Jones is the only rider of the bunch with a storyline behind his Real Snow part. The legendary big mountain rider is all about the journey: this time around, he tackles a huge spine run in Alaska that required days of waiting for snow and weather to cooperate.

Tune in on Sunday, November 22 at 1 p.m. ET/PT to ABC to find out who wins gold. The Fan Favorite award will be announced on Monday the 23rd. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite rider.