The Vermont native turned SLC local on the validation of his podium finish at Natural Selection, moving to France for a new gig with his longtime sponsor and the third chapter of his storied snowboarding career.

T. Bird: Hey, buddy. How you doing?

Nils Mindnich: Dude, I’m doing pretty good. How are you doing?

I’m doing great. I want to start off by, first of all, congratulating you. I don’t think we’ve spoken since you got second place at NST, but holy crap, man, what a winter.

Dude, thank you. Yeah, that was pretty crazy. That was an exhausting two days.

The way you approached the mindset and the strategy and your runs in Revelstoke was pretty mind-blowing to me. I mean, you were a tactician out there. What kind of validation did that give you?

Dude, so ending up second had its pros and cons. I think you get that far, to the final rounds, and you’re like, in hindsight, there’s a bit of me that’s trying to revisit on how I could have won, because at that point I totally could have. It goes either way at that point. But it was so validating, honestly. It was really nerve-wracking. Honestly, I feel like there are some people who maybe have a bit better of a streak with success on NST and just their reputation as riders. And probably three of the people that I would least want to compete against would be Mikkel [Bang], Jared [Elston] and Travis [Rice]. To go against those three guys, I feel like it wasn’t an easy route to get there, and it was really validating—like, “OK, cool, I can hang and ride with the best of the best.” And to end up with a second-place result, and to accomplish it by beating the guys that I did, felt almost settling in a way. 

A few seasons back, you put out Space Cadet with Bode Merrill; this year, you had a crazy good season on the Natural Selection Tour. It always seems like every winter you’re doing something big, and I recently heard some news about what you’re going to be getting into with one of your sponsors this coming winter, if you can talk about that.

Yeah, so, well, for starters, I accepted a job working for Salomon, doing product design. I’ll be working with the snowboard design team primarily, designing and engineering and prototyping all the Salomon boards. So at a surface level, that’s the role that I’m stepping into. And I think it’s interesting to talk about, because I think there are a lot of riders and industry people starting to wear more hats. Perhaps 10 years ago or 15 years ago, this might be seen as “retirement” or a significant transition away from pro snowboarding. But fortunately, I think you look at guys like Wolle Nyvelt, who’s done the Hillside Project, or even Justin Clark—J Stone, at K2—who seems to ride just as much as any pro. I think that with this role, the idea is that I’ll still be able to maintain and perform at an elite level for quite a few seasons, as long as I want. And then it’s given me this kind of insane, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get involved on the back end. Snowboarding is incredible. 

You and I have known each other through snowboarding for a really long time, and I think it’s cool, because you’ve probably seen a lot of people, like myself, go from this adolescent kid to navigating their life as an adult within snowboarding. But yeah, essentially, in two days my wife, dog and I are moving to Annecy, France, from Salt Lake City, with no intentions of coming back anytime soon. I’m fully jumping into the deep end to design snowboards. Also, I cannot thank my wife enough for trusting me to throw this curveball at us. 

So with this new job, are you going to be the first professional snowboarder to film a video part on nine different boards?

I feel like Wolle has probably done that already, right?

Yeah, if anyone has done it, it’s probably Wolle.

And I think a lot of people fallen accustomed to this. Like, watching the webcast at Natural Selection, I feel like I get—in a loving way—“Nils, he’s so methodical. He’s the engineer. He’s got that engineering, analytical mindset.” So now I’m really just doubling down on that. For better or worse, now I have zero chances to blame my equipment.

Yeah, you can never blame the board now.

Accountability. [Laughs.] 

I’m so damn proud of you, man. Like you said, I’ve known you for a really long time. I see this as just Chapter Three, right? We don’t have to put a label on it. It’s just Chapter Three.

Yeah, dude, totally. And it’s not like I’m going to work for a fucking defense company in Ogden, Utah. I’m making snowboards.

Absolutely.

I have to remind myself that, if anything, I’m kind of doubling down on my involvement in snowboarding. I honestly have no clue how it’s really going to pan out, but yeah, that’s the future-me problem. That’s sort of how I’ve been looking at this. I think I know enough of the roadmap and the end goal. Enough of the puzzle pieces are there. But, big picture, I know I can design great snowboards. I just need to make sure we can get our dog to Europe with no problems and make sure that my wife and I cultivate a good community in Annecy and learn French. I don’t know—I’m very hyper-focused just on making sure that home life is solid, and I know that everything else will just kind of fall into place naturally.