Alpenglow Winter Speaker Series
The 15th Annual Alpenglow Winter Speaker Series is Virtual!
Alpenglow Sports Winter Speaker Series is an eagerly anticipated winter tradition for North Tahoe’s adventure community. With over 4,000 attendees annually, the 15-year-old Alpenglow Winter Speaker Series has become the premier North American forum for adventure storytelling.
Five times per winter, a premier outdoor athlete presents an inspirational tale of adventure, creating a forum for motivation and inspiration. Every show is free. This season, due to the global pandemic, all shows are virtual and will livestream to you at home.
Raffle and bar proceeds in conjunction with anonymous donations, raise more than $50,000 per show for local non-profit organizations. To date, WSS has raised over $500,000, making a tangible difference in North Lake Tahoe and beyond. The much loved raffle will take place virtually this year with tickets for sale upon registration and winners announced during the livestream show.
Winter 2020/21 Schedule -All shows start at 7pm
| DATE | NOV 17 |
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| Presenter | Dave Nettle |
| Description | In his kick-off show “Sheltering in Place”, Dave Nettle will blend challenge and adventure into classic stories and images about a couple of climbing trips to Alaska on Moose’s Tooth and Mount Huntington and an expedition into the Kichatna Spires. Nettle will depict how on these climbs he and his partners found themselves unintentionally experiencing what it means to “shelter in place” while literally “stuck in place” tent bound deep in a remote mountain range for over 2 weeks of intense, continual snow storms. |
| DATE | DEC 3 |
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| Presenter | Cody Townsend |
| Description | Famed local ski mountaineer Cody Townsend continues the series with his show “The Best Three So Far: Stories Behind The Fifty Project.” Townsend is on a well-publicized and passionately followed webisode project to ski the fifty most challenging, beautiful and classic backcountry ski lines in North America. His show will take you behind the scenes of ski descents on the Grand Teton, Alaska’s coveted Meteorite and the highest peak in North America, 20,308-foot Denali. |
| DATE | JAN 7 |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Angel Collinson |
| Description | Extreme skiing icon Angel Collinson, welcomes the new year with her show “Another Half-Mile,” depicting funny and serious stories from her childhood, her evolution as an extreme skier at Utah’s famous Snowbird Resort, and how she has utilized these life lessons during expeditions and on some of the most extreme ski descents ever captured on film. Collinson was the first woman to win Powder Magazine’s “Best Line” award and is a mainstay in annual Teton Gravity Research films. |
| DATE | FEB 4 |
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| Presenter | Ingrid Backstrom |
| Description | Ingrid Backstrom, an extreme skier of international fame, established herself in Matchstick Production’s 2004 Yearbook, was the only female to be featured as one of Powder Magazine’s Future Big Mountain Heroes in 2002. She has also won the prestigious awards for performances in ski films including “Best Female Performance” and “Breakthrough Performance” at the 2005 Powder Magazine Video Awards. Backstrom resides in Washington with her husband and young daughter and her show “Little Big Mountain Skiing” will depict a few of her best trips and ski lines, followed by the transition of a continuing ski career while becoming a mother. |
| DATE | FEB 25 |
|---|---|
| Presenter | Vasu Sojitra |
| Description | For 28 years, Vasu Sojitra has navigated life with one leg, an amputation that occurred when he was only nine months old. Now 29, Vasu is one of the top adaptive athletes and backcountry skiers in the world, and is known for putting down First Disabled Descents (FDDs). However, that’s not where he stops. His true passion lies in making the outdoors accessible to all. He has coined his approach to backcountry skiing as “ninjasticking,” and uses this to bring intersectionality to the outdoor space. Sojitra’s show will look at this intersectionality in-depth, and how reclaiming and breaking down stigmas that come with a Disability can change how transformation of outdoor spaces are viewed, welcomed and celebrated. |
