Will Gadd's Winter Speaker Series

As an athlete, he won the X Games, set two world records for paragliding, and safely led numerous large TV and research expeditions into highly dangerous, and rewarding, environments. He climbed up a frozen Niagara Falls, flew a paraglider over the Grand Canyon, and taught his kids (and doctors and oil sands workers) to positively manage risk with the direct, entertaining and effective tools he learned through a lifetime of living on the edge.

Join us for Will Gadd's Winter Speaker Series "Get Stoked, Survive." Lessons learned while doing ridiculous things on rock, snow, ice, water, and in the air. Try. Listen. Learn. Adapt. Do better. Hell yeah!

He speaks with personal humor and professional depth on practical, widely applicable strategies for doing great things while staying safe, building team resiliency, succeeding in low-knowledge environments, and doing what everyone said was impossible. He has delivered more than 200 keynote presentations to groups from American Express to Hydro One.

Most recently, he and his teams found new life forms in glacial caves for a Discovery TV show and helped a planetary scientist sample the world’s oldest rocks in Canada’s Arctic. He is an award-winning author, filmmaker and (not award winning) dad based in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. At 59, he is still sponsored by Red Bull, Arc’teryx and other leading brands. His newest book, Surviving and Succeeding in High-Hazard Environments, is based on his own experiences and on interviews with ten of the world’s top medical, industrial, corporate and military risk managers. It will be published in spring 2027.

Truckee Dirt Union is creating positive outcomes for mountain biking in Tahoe, Truckee, and beyond. With sustainability, community involvement, and economic vitality at its core, Truckee Dirt Union (TDU) is a group of passionate outdoor community members working voluntarily to help cultivate responsible [and RAD] mountain bike recreation.

TDU is focused on creating a sustainable future for the mountain bike experience through a three-tiered collaborative approach involving: community activation and cultivation, stewardship and education, and access and outreach advocacy.

The best way to support the Truckee Dirt Union today is by buying online giveaway tickets above. 

Help us keep these free events free! Our events team is comprised of four individuals that work tirelessly to continuously improve our events and increase our nonprofit fundraising. We're not exaggerating when we say that no specialty retailer in the world does what we do - big or small, corporate or independent. And for good reason: a year-round calendar of free events is a taxing proposition for any business.

Our team pulls out all the stops to work with partner brands and organizations to fund each event, which allows them to remain free to the community. However, events such as the Winter Speaker Series have become so big and expensive that this model still stretches our finances thin.

As such, we're hoping to make an appeal to YOU, our community, to help us offset the cost of the Winter Speaker Series. Whether you have been to one show or nearly all of them, we would be ever so grateful if you would consider supporting our free community events with a small contribution.