Travis Rice look out over Galena. All photos: Andrew Miller

They say that addicts have to hit rock bottom before they can start their road to recovery, and there’s an argument that’s where Travis Rice got to last year with The Fourth Phase. Creaking under the weight of the dollars and expectation that had been piled on top of it, and soaked in Red Bull’s sugary caffeine, The Fourth Phase was the inevitable conclusion to a decade of mega-production, mega-mo, chopper-on-chopper, wilderbeast herding, avalanche-dodging, never-been-done-before, edge-of-the-known-universe snowboarding.

“Travis is back. And he has started his 12 steps to recovery with Depth Perception“

It was the Waterworld of snowboard movies; out of control and over budget. It ended up being a scene-chewing not-snowboarding snowboarding movie that left a lot of people wishing for the good old days of a Super-8 filming some sketchy backside 5s in a hand-shaped quarterpipe.

I know, it was supposed to be a movie for the masses, a chance to introduce the legions of the un-jazzed to our world, it wasn’t ever intended to be a core movie… but it just didn’t work. The ingredients got all jumbled up and, I thought at the time, it was going to be the snowboard movie to end all snowboard movies.

Thankfully, it wasn’t.

Because Travis is back. And he has started his 12 steps to recovery with Depth Perception.