Flatlanders Ride to High Country to Play Hooky

They plotted their escape during nutrition period the day before, and now 25 members of the Franklin High School’s Class of ’91 were engaged in a snowball fight far from the campus and high above Los Angeles at the Charlton Flats picnic grounds on Angeles Crest Highway.

“It’s Senior Ditch Day,” one student explained. Then, he added, “We’re seniors,” as if that made truancy perfectly OK.

For thousands of Los Angeles’ flatlanders who like an occasional frolic in the snow, Friday proved ideal to play hooky. Students skipped class while older folks left the workaday world behind to venture into the San Gabriel Mountains, freshly frosted from recent storms. They had come in search of a good time, celebrating the virtues of Los Angeles’ geography and climate. A few--including some members of the Franklin High crowd--would encounter frightening reminders of life down below.

Up in Los Angeles County’s high country, the snow level was at the 4,000-foot elevation, and since peaks such as Mt. Waterman eclipse 8,000 feet, that leaves a lot of terrain covered in white. After five years of drought, it is the latest, largest and most refreshing snowfall in a long time, said Lynn Newcomb, longtime operator of the Mt. Waterman ski area.

For Carrol and Carol Miller of Altadena, the snow meant a chance to do some cross-country skiing fewer than 45 minutes from home, with their 2-year-old daughter, Katie, in tow.

For special education teacher Karen Kiefer, it was a different kind of field trip for her “Special Friends”--a program jointly sponsored by the Pasadena Unified School District and the American Red Cross that integrates special education students with those from the regular curriculum.

On the chairlift at Mt. Waterman, one skier after another confessed to playing hooky. Seats that weren’t carrying skiers were loaded with cases of beer to restock the warming hut.

“I like to ski when the snow’s on the ground and not in the sky,” explained Bernie Grotz of Pasadena. His wife, Marijke, said that if not for the snowfall, “I’d be cleaning the house.”

“I’ve skied up here on Saturday and gone to the beach on Sunday,” said Bob Stockemer of North Hollywood, taking a break in a warming hut (elevation 7,800 feet). He had taken the day off from his duties as production coordinator at Walt Disney Imagineering.

A few confident skiers didn’t need the beach; they shed their shirts to work on their tans. But the snow wasn’t the mushy stuff common to the condition known as “spring skiing.”

“This is winter skiing in March,” Newcomb marveled. Without any snow-making machines to help out, his ski area didn’t open until three weeks ago. Now it has a four-foot base, and with more snowfall forecast, he figures to stay busy for at least another three weeks.

On the way back home, there was a reminder that perhaps there is no escaping urban violence.

A sudden traffic jam was one clue. The flashing red light of law enforcement was another. Up ahead a paramedic helicopter was easing down to carry a teen-ager to Verdugo Hills Hospital in Glendale.

Had he fallen down a cliff? Hurt sledding? Neither. Frankie Lopez, 16, had been shot in the right shoulder by a pellet fired from a BB gun, and his white T-shirt was now streaked in red. Lying on a stretcher, a friend holding aloft a bag of plasma, Lopez was able to smile and joke as paramedics rendered first-aid. He was released after treatment at the hospital.

Lopez’s friends--four boys and three girls--said they had come up from Ontario just to play in the snow.

“A car came and all kinds of guys came out and started shooting,” one girl said.

They told William Shaw, the Clear Creek forest ranger, that they had never seen their assailants before. They just flashed some gang signs and started firing a gun. Several shots were fired; only Lopez was hit. “We were just kicking back,” one friend said.

As paramedics worked on Lopez, a car pulled over. In it were four members of the Franklin High crowd. They had seen the guys with the guns and offered descriptions of two cars. They were “cholitos,” the driver said. “Cholos.”

This wasn’t unusual, Shaw said. “We have constant gang activity up here,” he said. Only two weeks earlier, he had handled a similar shooting.

Shaw told the Franklin students he needed their names and statements--that they were potential witnesses in an attempted murder case.

The students agreed--but told Shaw not to tell their parents.

“We’re supposed to be in school,” one said.