TAHOE CITY, Calif. — The 20th annual Alpenglow Sports Winter Speaker Series will wrap up March 6 with a presentation by local mountain guide and series co-founder Dave Nettle, closing out another season of adventure storytelling in North Lake Tahoe.

The Alpenglow Sports Winter Speaker Series has grown into one of North America’s premier adventure-focused speaker events, drawing more than 3,000 attendees annually in person and online. The series features five presentations each winter, highlighting elite athletes and explorers while fostering community connection through shared stories of outdoor adventure.

Nettle’s talk, titled “Backcountry Ski Touring — An Unconditional Love,” will cap the 2025–26 series at the Palisades Tahoe Olympic Village Event Center. The presentation will draw from Nettle’s travels over the past winter, ranging from day tours in the North Tahoe backcountry to extended hut-to-hut ski traverses in Austria and Switzerland, including the classic Silvretta Alps Route.

Nettle’s show seeks to blend sweeping mountain imagery with humor and reflection, exploring the unpredictable nature of backcountry ski touring. The presentation centers an optimistic approach to the sport — embracing variable conditions, long days and uncertain outcomes — and the value of shared experiences in wild places.

Each Winter Speaker Series event benefits a different nonprofit organization selected through an application process. Over two decades, the series has raised more than $2.5 million for local nonprofits. Funds are generated through ticket sales, raffles, bar proceeds and anonymous donor contributions, with individual events raising up to $100,000 or more.

The beneficiary of Nettle’s presentation is the Tahoe Cross Country Ski Education Association (TCCSEA), which works to reduce barriers to outdoor recreation by offering free trail passes to youth and seniors and providing affordable, year-round recreation programs for families.

For the 2025–26 season, the Tahoe Fund committed to matching up to $40,000 in in-person funds raised across the series, with all proceeds distributed to participating nonprofits.

The March 6 event will include both in-person and online giveaways benefiting TCCSEA. Attendees can enter raffles onsite, while livestream viewers are eligible for separate online prize drawings. Winners will be selected before and after the event, with online winners notified by email.

The event is free and family-friendly. Doors open at 6 p.m. for food, drinks and raffles, with the presentation beginning at 7 p.m. The show will also be livestreamed on Alpenglow Sports’ YouTube channel and available for later viewing.

Nettle’s presentation follows earlier season speakers including climber Emily Harrington, skier and filmmaker Chris Benchetler, ski industry innovator Mike Hattrup and big-mountain skier John Collinson.

More information is available through Alpenglow Sports website.