The last time we talked to Oakley team rider Ståle Sandbech, he was just about to become a father and was officially leaving competitive snowboarding to focus on filming. Well, it’s been about two years, and while we are happy to report that we had to wait until 11:30 p.m. to chat while he put his son to sleep, we couldn’t help but fixate on the fact that Ståle lied to us about his other life plan. After taking a year off of competing, he joined the Natural Selection Tour (NST) and swept the competition to take the top spot in Revelstoke this past winter. A far cry from contest retirement (although he has no plans to return to slopestyle), Ståle’s dominant performance in his “rookie” year with NST has put him smack-dab in the competition crosshairs once again while he also balances filming for new projects and designing another year of his decade-long run of pro models with Rome. What will he lie about next? Read on and check back in two years. – Clavin

Clavin: Do you have anything in your mind that you’ve had to walk away from and you wanna go back to?

Ståle Sandbech:
I don’t know.

Must be nice to just accomplish everything you’ve ever wanted to accomplish.
Yeah, pretty much. I tend to pick my battles and try until I can get it, but obviously in the backcountry there is times when the landing shuts you down with too many tracks or bomb holes.

Why did you name your son Storm?
I thought it was a sick name.

Nothing tied to snowboarding?
Yeah, I mean, it’s probably tied to my lifestyle, for sure. But it’s also, like, a sort of common name in Norway. Storm is more common than Ståle.

You going to push him to become a pro snowboarder as well?
My dream is not for him to become a professional snowboarder. It is just for him to want to go on snowboard trips with me.

How was last season?
It was great. Of course, I had my ups and downs, and the conditions worldwide the last few seasons are more bad days than good, unless you were in Japan the whole time. But you just make stuff happen.

Would you say your biggest rival since leaving competition is now just global warming?
Yeah. For sure.

Work on any projects?
I filmed with Rusty [Ockenden], and I know it’s not the Manboys anymore, but it’s pretty much like what it used to be, with some new faces. But most of the winter was [spent] in British Columbia, filming with those guys.

And how’d you originally get linked up with that crew?
I’ve known Rusty since, like, 2011, when he was on the Rome team and we went on a trip together. Torgeir [Bergrem] and I have just been friends with that whole crew ever since.

How is traveling now that you are a dad?
I fly a little bit less than I used to, because I used to follow the contest circuit and just go back to back all over the place. Now I tend to stay longer in one place and then go home, you know? I also tend to be less hungover on flights than I used to, which is helping.

Partying less than the heavy contest years?
Absolutely. Being able to film is so fucking fun. I just want to be feeling good and [be] able to wake up early and head out there and ride as much powder as I can. I realize that I appreciate sleep more than anything now.

You also worked on the Rome project this year, yeah?
Yeah, went to Japan with Rene [Rinnekangas], Martin Lässer, Keegan [Hosefros], Yuri [Okubo] and Kaishi [Obata]. It should be a short movie coming out. I hadn’t been there for 10 years, and I never really scored powder there, so it was so sick to not have to do a big-air contest and [instead] experience the fluffy Japan powder. Hard to compete with that. I feel like I need to go every year now.

So you’d rather ride powder than win a brand-new car at a big-air contest?
Yeah, for sure. I wouldn’t mind a new Toyota, but I don’t want to do big contests anymore. I’m done with those.

Didn’t you just win a car from the Natural Selection Tour win?
I won a snowmobile. [Laughs.] But I am keeping it in Canada, since we’re not allowed to ride snowmobiles freely here in Norway. And I mean, that is a whole different way of competing. I had a little break of two years without that pressure of having to perform at a certain time, which was one of the more draining parts at the end of my slopestyle career. Coming back to Natural Selection, you still have that aspect where you need to go when it’s on, but we had amazing conditions, and it was just so fucking sick to ride.

Why did you decide to come back?
I turned down the invite a few times, for different reasons, like Olympics and then taking a full year off…but when they asked again, I felt like I couldn’t turn it down, because I might never get another invite. And then yeah, I went for it, and it went good.

You had to come all the way through the duel rounds to the finals.
Yeah, our original duel was in Switzerland, and we spent the whole week trying to find places to ride, but the snow hadn’t set yet. There was just rocks everywhere. So, we ended up doing it in Whistler. We put the round’s prize money towards having another duel. So, I guess we got a free holiday, but I didn’t get prize money from the stop.

Where does a number one in Natural Selection overall rank in your career highlights?
It’s hard. If it’s not number one, it’s in the top three. I would say the Olympics and my first X Games medal or Air & Style is all up there. But at this point, just riding at Natural Selection, being there with all those guys, having great conditions and people landing their shit, I think it was probably one of the more emotional ones to come out on top. Maybe I’m more emotional as a dad. I’ve had a lot of podiums, but it’s been more second and thirds than first. So, being able to claim the top was sick as fuck. 

Are you gonna try to repeat and compete again, or just film?
I mean, it’s hard to say at this point, but I mean…I should be able to do both.

You think your years of contest experience helped in Revelstoke?
For sure. Being used to being in those situations of pressure and how you deal with that—that makes it a bit of an advantage, to be calm, but as far as riding wise, it is probably more similar to filming, so I don’t know.

Prepping for this course has to be a lot different as well.
Yeah, this is like full homework. You have to look at all the footage and try to get to know the course by looking at a map and photos and visualizing and memorizing. In slope, you ride the course for two, three days, feel the speed and when you want to get more technical, while this natural aspect, you have to just preplan everything and sort of imagine how this jump will feel or if the landing is really a landing.

Good thing you came up through snowboard schools in Norway. Did you have good grades?
I did one year of when I was 16. I think [my grades] were pretty mediocre. I feel like I was decent in school, but when snowboarding started, it took up so much time. I don’t have that photographic memory, so I had to go more instinct [at Natural Selection] and plan a few key points and let it just happen. It’s too complex to plan five full runs on the different faces.

Did you get lost at all when you were up there?
Yeah. I think I say it on the livestream. I got lost. All of a sudden, I was on top of the wrong cliff, and I had no choice. I had to go down, and I just got so fogged up. There was no landing, so I just flew out on my ass down the second cliff.

When you realize you’re in the wrong zone, how do you try to stay composed?
I would say it has happened to most of us when we’re riding resorts, you know? On a pow day or something. The only difference here was that you’re on livestream, and you want to keep flowing. In the Alps, you can definitely get into some sketchy situations.

But I think the hard part about the planning, too, was, you know, we had the long qualifier day, which we had a lot of time to plan, but then we only had a few hours once finals was decided, and your brain doesn’t have the capacity to memorize the spots for both venues. So, finals was a bit more spontaneous than the qualifier, probably. I’m glad everyone came out of that event fine, because some people, or a lot of people, took some gnarly drops.

And you took the top spot!
It’s the closest I’ve been to shedding tears on, like, a snowboard podium you. It was very special. Stepping away from contests and then trying to get into filming and having a couple seasons with not the greatest conditions, so I wasn’t able to fully do what I wanted to, and then having this happen was just, like, a sort of proof to myself [that] I’m still here.

What is your biggest motivator moving forward? 
To try and make that part where I really feel like I’ve been able to showcase my riding in full effect.

What about keeping the 10 years of pro models going? That is quite an accomplishment.
I haven’t thought about that, really, since I announced that, but yeah, that is big. Got lucky. It’s just been good people and a good dynamic, and [it] seems like people have been liking the boards. The fact that they gave me an opportunity to have a pro-model board and then a collection—it’s definitely been beyond my dreams.