Thoughts about…

Winter Recap

Hey everyone, sorry for my really conversational tone but I decided to keep things casual this month. It’s already April 15th (as I write this) so I’m running behind, which seems to be the norm nowadays for these newsletters. It’s just because I’m always busy, though 🙂

Honestly, though, my last day of work for Kirkwood Cross-Country was this past Sunday, April 13th. So, in a lot of respects, I just kind of felt like I wanted to finish out the season strong. I wanted to work as many hours as I possibly could before going into the shoulder season, where I’m not getting any income. So, yeah, I’ve just been working a lot.

Cross-country skiing off-piste at Kirkwood XC on March 2, 2025. © Jared Manninen

That’s kind of been the theme this year for me, because in all my previous winters that I’ve been in the cross-country ski industry I’ve mostly just worked on the weekends. That’s because the resort at which I worked was up in Truckee. So I would drive up on Friday morning, for example, and then come home either Sunday night or Monday after a work shift. And while I was up there, I’d be staying with friends. So I wouldn’t necessarily be at my house every night, whereas this season I worked essentially full-time. It was five days a week. It wasn’t eight-hour days, but they were five to seven hour days. That meant that I still had to go down to Kirkwood, which is about a 40 minute drive when the roads are relatively clear and open. So a lot of commuting, but being able to sleep in my own bed every night was super nice. I really appreciate that, and this was the first winter in, well, 11 years that I’ve been able to do that!

But this whole work schedule is what made this winter so much different because, again, I was at a groomed resort every day that I worked. So I was guaranteed five days of skiing every week without really trying hard, because being on skis is part of the job. And it’s a nice benefit, for sure. In all of my previous winters, I would ski while I was at work on the weekend but then when I’d get home I would end up doing a bunch of backcountry cross-country skiing. So having this near daily exposure to groomed cross-country ski trails made for a different feel to the winter.

I took advantage of this fact by practicing a lot of downhill-focused technique. I did a whole series of downhill-related cross-country ski videos, which was good. Then I just worked on my own downhill technique. Midway through winter, I started bringing some of my backcountry cross-country skis over to the downhill side of our resort, and then going on the green and blue runs to become more adept at skiing downhill on cross-country skis.

High Trail Extension at Kirkwood XC on March 6, 2025. © Jared Manninen

What I also found different about this year was that because I was around groomed terrain so much, I didn’t have to go out and find snow in the backcountry. What I’ve usually been doing over these last few winters is that I’ve been making a lot of outdoor vlogs, taking some tours, basically filming my experience out in nature and sharing that with everyone on YouTube. But this year I didn’t do too many backcountry tours because, again, I was always at groomed terrain.

I was really studying, just being a student again, especially since I wasn’t working toward any certifications. I earned my level three through PSIA last season, and that’s about as high as you can go in cross-country skiing. There’s other roles that you can take on in PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America), but as far as just being a straightforward instructor, level three is the top. So I had freedom to explore technique, and that was a really nice thing. The thing about groomed terrain is that it is an ideal environment. The snow is, for the most part, consistent, consolidated, and predictable. So you can take your technique to the umpteenth degree based on the fact that you have a consistent snowpack on which to ski. In the backcountry, it’s hit or miss. You may find some good patches of snow that are perfect or ideal for practicing technique, but a lot of times it’s just really variable. So it makes it difficult to learn proper technique. It’s good to know both, and I do work on becoming proficient and, in general, a better skier by knowing how to adapt my technique to accommodate different types of snow conditions and angles of terrain.

If you really want to dive into a thing, however, you have to have a good learning environment. You have to have a good framework. This goes for anything, really. I’ve talked about this before, just finding an ideal situation so that you can practice your art or passion within the framework of an ideal scenario.

High Trail Extension after a storm at Kirkwood XC on March 7, 2025. © Jared Manninen

While working this winter, I offered a whole bunch of different clinics on the weekends that were pretty popular at first, but we had a low snow beginning to the year. In December and January it was pretty dry. We had a couple of storms that yielded enough snow on which to groom some of our trails. But I think we had a storm that finished on the seventh of January, and then we didn’t have any new snow until the 31st of January.

The snow picked up by February and into March, so we actually had all of our trails, or at least 95% of our trails, groomed, which was pretty amazing all things considered. However, when the beginning of winter starts out as slow as it did, a lot of people just start to tune out right off the bat. And that’s kind of what happened with my clinics as participation dropped off the further we got into January.

There was enough snow that I was able to work and ski and make YouTube videos, but my world felt pretty small. For the most part, I’d go to work and come home. And, on my days off, I’d stay at home to work on more videos, editing photos, making artwork, reading, relaxing, and just kind of keeping to myself.

The Upper Truckee River in Washoe Meadows State Park on March 13, 2025. © Jared Manninen

I think when Dotty, my cat, died in mid-February that just made my world feel even a little bit smaller. Now, I don’t want you thinking that I’m bummed out or depressed or anything like that. I mean, obviously, I’m sad about Dotty. But it was just a different winter. I can’t say it any other way than that it was different.

It was a great winter in a lot of respects, and it was kind of a bummer of a winter in others. And that’s okay. That’s just life.

View of Little Round Top Ridge on March 16, 2025. © Jared Manninen

I did get 100 xc ski days. I actually just logged my 100th day on the 11th of April and, technically, I’m at 103 ski days so far. So I met that goal.

I really became good at downhill technique on cross-country skis. I even surprised myself. In many respects, it’s due to great feedback that I’ve gotten from people on YouTube, people making comments about “maybe try this, maybe try that.” And based on those, as well as friends giving me feedback, I stepped up my Telemark turns and alpine turns. And I may not look like the best, but there’s a lot of downhill skiers that cannot come over to the cross-country ski world and be able to perform that same technique, those same downhill turns on our gear. It’s really hard because the equipment that we use is so light, we have grip zones, we got soft boots, and not very stable binding systems. The bottom line is that performing downhill technique on any type of cross-country ski is challenging. But I feel good about my progress this season. So that’s a huge win for me.

Snowy drive home on March 17, 2025. © Jared Manninen

Another contributing factor to this winter feeling kind of claustrophobic is that the Tahoe Big Year came to a close on the 31st of December. So that community that I was in constant contact, literally on a daily basis, they’re still around but I didn’t have that compelling urge to keep in touch with everyone every day. As relieved as I was to have freedom from having to go out and look for birds all the time, it was also a big part of my life for all of last year. And whenever we have this routine that we’re in for a long period of time, this immersive experience, and then that’s gone, you have this void that needs to be filled.

I don’t know that I actually filled it, but it was nice coming home and relaxing and being able to put out as many YouTube videos as I did. Fortunately, the YouTube community becomes kind of my winter community. There’s a lot of people that I get to know, or that I’ve gotten to know over the years who comment. And it’s obviously not the same as being in person, but it’s still nice to be able to have conversations with people and to share our love of this thing called cross-country skiing.

View of the Sentinels at Kirkwood XC on March 22, 2025. © Jared Manninen

The main takeaway for me, starting at the beginning of this year, is that this is a rebuilding year. This winter being my second one at Kirkwood Cross-Country, and my first where I’ve actually started offering clinics, teaching a lot, getting involved with the direction of where the ski center is going to go in the future, as well as dialing in my own personal technique on cross-country skis. I’m also letting go of doing Tahoe Big Years. For the most part, I’m “retiring” from them. I just want to focus on other projects. I want to start writing for Tahoe Trail Guide again. I want to do more summer content for my YouTube channel. And I want to have the freedom to explore some of the species, the trails, and the elements of living at Lake Tahoe that, while doing Big Years, for example, I don’t have time to do.

So this year is going to feel a little bit freeform, kind of like how I’m doing this month’s newsletter. But that is completely fine with me because I have so many different activities and projects that I want to do that all basically fall under the same umbrella of being outside, being immersed in nature, and seeking a good daily quality of life. I really couldn’t ask for anything more than that!

View of Caples Lake and Round Top on March 24, 2025. © Jared Manninen

Since the cross-country ski season is wrapping up, my YouTube video output is slowing down. This isn’t so much because I don’t want to keep making them. Mostly it’s because people stop watching them! haha 🙂 And that’s just a result of everyone moving on to spring activities such as hiking, biking, and doing yard work. But we still have lots of snow in Tahoe, so I’ll be xc skiing until the end (which I suspect will be sometime in May).

All of that said, I do plan on making videos as the season winds down because I just invested in a new Insta360 camera. So I want to learn how to use it as best I can. I created some of these videos using that new camera. I’m impressed at how versatile it is, particularly for a one-person operation such as myself. The camera captures everything and enables me to change camera angles and do some creative stuff in the editing process.

Anyway, that camera is super fun to use so maybe I’ll focus on shorter form videos in the coming weeks 🙂

Thanks for being a part of my life. Until next time…

-Jared Manninen

Tahoe Trail Guide is an online resource for hiking, backpacking, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing in the Lake Tahoe region. In addition to trail data, I offer backcountry “how-to” articles and information about the local and natural history of Tahoe. Tahoe Swag is a collection of art and design products I create based on my love of the outdoors and appreciation for Lake Tahoe and the surrounding Sierra Nevada Mountains.

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