Well, I struck out again as far as producing any type of memorable essay or article for this month’s newsletter. One day, I’ll get back on track.

In the meantime…

My official last day of winter work at Kirkwood XC was on March 22nd. Yeesh, that’s like three weeks earlier than normal! Again, it’s been a low-snow winter so we just couldn’t stay open any longer.

That said, the frosting on the cake for that last week of work is the fact that we all got to meet (at the xc center) the amazing musician, Sarah McLachlan! I used to listen to her music on repeat all of the time. Such a random celebrity sighting, but she was staying with friends at Kirkwood and loves to skate ski. So they came in to buy trail passes and I had a brief chance to chat with her. She’s an absolutely incredible person, and so down to earth. She’s also a good skate skier 🙂

Prior to, and up until now, I continue to train in Telemark skiing in pursuit of earning my level 1 certification as an instructor. I wouldn’t say that I’ve been studying the books nearly as hard as I’ve been hitting the slopes. But I’m doing what I can to prepare myself for the practical exam that’ll be held on April 20-21, believe it or not. The exam is at Mammoth Mountain, so the snow should be fine as that resort features the highest terrain around.

As the snow recedes and the summer trails are revealed, I begin to trail run again. What I’ve found to be a wonderful thing is that I’ve basically picked up where I left off last season. It’s as if the winter never happened and I’m right back at it. To be fair, though, xc skiing definitely helped me to maintain that summer fitness. But this all means that I should be able to continue logging longer miles sooner than later without having to do the run-walk-run thing again. Yay!

As I’ve mentioned more than once recently, the snow has been melting early and fast! So the birds have been moving about a lot more these past few weeks. It was hard for me to pass up the chance to do some birding on my commutes to work (before the end of the season) and around town. Needless to say, I’ve been carrying my camera a lot more lately 🙂

The First Tahoe Nordic Expo is Officially in the Books as of Last Weekend!

Although I didn’t talk in-depth about this event leading up to it, I’ve been acting as a consultant for the Tahoe Nordic Expo for the past year. A friend from Tahoe Donner XC, Elyse Sara, conceived, planned, and organized the entire event. She did an amazing job of bringing together different nordic elements to celebrate the diversity and richness of xc skiing at Lake Tahoe. My role was to essentially be a voice on the opposite end of the phone offering whatever feedback I could in order to help the TNE come to fruition.

From Elyse following the event day…

The day began with some incredible clinics and a laser biathlon relay. The highlight of the afternoon was our virtual panel moderated by Andy Newell, featuring an inspiring lineup of speakers: Kikkan Randall, Julia Kern, JC Schoonmaker, Jaz Taylor, and Annika Malacinski. Their insights, stories, and perspectives made for a truly memorable conversation about the sport and its future.

In addition to consulting, I ran a backcountry xc ski clinic in the morning. Now, keep in mind that there was no snow on which to ski this day. It’s been a brutal low-snow winter here at Lake Tahoe this season. But we all made due. Backcountry xc skiing is kind of a niche within a niche as far as cross-country goes. So I brought in a bunch of backcountry-related cross-country ski gear to show and discuss. Since many of my clinic participants were new to xc skiing in general, this gave them some new information to digest. We also did a brief guided hike and talked about aspects of xc skiing off-trail, as well as local flora identification.

We had a modest crowd for this first time around, but it was manageable and everyone appeared to have a great time. The highlight definitely was the virtual panel. So much stimulating discussion and food for thought for the future of xc skiing! I’m very grateful to have been a part of this experience, and I sincerely hope we do it again next year 🙂

Well, I keep grinding out an xc ski-related video or two as the season comes to a close. As you’ll see in the last video, here, I logged day #90 on March 30, 2026. I’ve logged a few more since that day, so I now only have seven more days to go to reach my target goal of 100 ski days for the winter of 2025-26. Very exciting!