How Elijah Pyle balances the casual and the competitive in international snowboarding

By Miles Dwyer

There was a time when Elijah Pyle couldn’t backflip. Nearly a decade ago in Bend, Oregon, all of his buddies were stomping backflips each time they went up snowboarding, but Pyle had a mental block. He was afraid. Eight years later, the fear is still there, but instead of shaking his head at a makeshift jump buried in the trees of Mt. Bachelor, Pyle stands over a 22-foot halfpipe on the world stage.

A 19-year snowboarder from Bend, Pyle is a member of the U.S. Snowboarding Rookie Team, and these days, he does a lot more than backflip. Since turning professional in 2022, Pyle has competed in 24 halfpipe competitions (a snowboarding event where riders are scored on the quality of their tricks during a run through a 22-foot tall U-shaped snow ramp), finishing in the top-10 10 times and the top five four times. This season, Pyle will take a term off from his freshman year at the University of Oregon to compete on the international circuit once again, beginning to compete for a spot on the 2026 United States Olympic team.

For kids growing up in Bend, skiing or snowboarding can often be a mandate rather than a choice. Pyle’s parents first threw him on a pair of skis at three, and by age five, Pyle joined his parents on snowboards. As a teen, Pyle didn’t see joining the U.S. National team as a possibility. It wasn’t on his mind. 

As a teen, one of Pyle’s coaches at Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation — a snowboarding team Pyle has been training and competing with from a young age — convinced Pyle to shift his focus from slopestyle snowboarding to halfpipe. Pyle’s new event came naturally, which Pyle credits to the curved shape of the runs at Mt. Bachelor. A few seasons later, Pyle was approached by U.S. Snowboarding about joining the rookie team.

“When I was a little kid, that was the dream,” says Pyle. “I feel like when you’re a kid, you always want to be the best at what you do. There’s no other thought than that.”

Pyle was in high school when he started competing on the international circuit, and juggling school and snowboarding wasn’t an easy task for him. While many of his snowboarding peers took classes online or forwent school altogether, Pyle stayed in-person. It’s something he’s grateful and proud to have done. And after taking a year to snowboard full time after graduating high school in the 2023-2024 season, Pyle is happy to have some school back in his life. 

“During my gap year, I realized that I was happier when I was in school part-time because it offered contrast to the grind of snowboarding,” Pyle said. “It made snowboarding feel like more of ‘the reward.’”

Pyle is a first-year student at the University of Oregon, but he won’t be a student full-time as he continues his professional career. Still, Pyle aims to balance riding with the greatest snowboarders in the world and his friends from down the hall. Despite his rare talent, Pyle’s drive comes from a desire to have fun and build community, rather than an insatiable urge to be the best.

“As a snowboarder, he’s one of the best I’ve ever met,” says Noah Warnell, the President of Oregon’s Freeride Ski and Snowboard team. Pyle isn’t a member of the team, a byproduct of his winter schedule, but he’s made the effort to be a part of his peers' local ski and snowboard community.

“He can do things I wish I could do in a million years, but as a person, he’s a super nice kid and a really humble guy,” Warnell continued. “He didn’t want to make it known that he’s a professional snowboarder, but it slipped in that he wasn’t going to school in the winter and was going to be snowboarding all winter, and then it clicked who he really was.”

Pyle never wants snowboarding to stop feeling like “the reward.” He’s dedicated to perfecting his craft and making the 2026 Olympic team, and sometimes that means hard, grindy days. But, he’s also committed to keeping the fun and lightheartedness a part of his snowboarding. While most of his halfpipe competitors will finish their run flat down the middle of the pipe, Pyle likes to quickly slash up and down the pipe wall like he’s surfing in Maui — something he does frequently in the summer.

Last season, Pyle’s international competition duties sent him across the world competing in 12 events from December 2023 to April 2024. But in between his premier snowboarding cups, Pyle and three friends from Bend found time to star in a classic ski movie shot by Pete Alport — a famous snowsport creative based in Bend. The movie is called “4-LO,” alluding to the four starring teens and the movie’s low budget. Oh, and four-wheel drive all the way.

“I love filming clips of my friends, having my friends get clips of me, and just the act of passing a camera to a friend,” Pyle said. “On one hand, you can study your tricks and get better, but it’s also just making a sick edit with your friends. That’s the most fun thing for me.”

As Pyle’s competition career progresses, his halfpipe run is constantly changing because he pushes himself to take on more challenging tricks. Pyle remembers his first time competing in a national halfpipe competition as a nerve-wracking experience, with family and friends watching at the base of Copper Mountain in Summit County, Colorado. That day, he put a trick he felt shaky about in his run, and the gamble paid off.

“There was this one backside spin that I had not done much in practice, so it was definitely risky to put that in my run, but I felt like I needed to in order to compete. That run, I was able to stick it, and that was insane. After I landed that I was like, ‘Oh, piece of cake. I’ll just confidently do the rest of the things.’”

Every two years the Winter Olympics amplifies snowboarding and other sports across the world, which is part of why a bid to the 2026 Italy Games is Pyle’s ultimate goal. A medal in Milan would be fantastic, but if he makes it to Italy, Pyle is after more than the podium.

“For me, it’s less about the accolades. It’s about going out there and doing the tricks and the style of riding that I would hope to inspire in people. If that has me do well, great. If it doesn’t, I’d hope it would still have an effect on people watching.”

There’s plenty of uncertain outcomes between Pyle and the Olympics, but Pyle seems undaunted by the challenges ahead on the path. 

“There’s not much time to think when you’re going down,” says Pyle, describing what goes on in his head as he drops into a halfpipe. “It’s very much a spontaneous thing where you just do things that feel natural.”