Snowstorm Strands Thousands : Weather: The CHP closes several routes, including part of the Golden State and Antelope Valley freeways. Traffic is backed up for miles.

A winter storm Tuesday dropped heavy snow in northern Los Angeles County, closing freeways, stranding thousands of commuters on the road, marooning children in day-care centers and packing motels, coffee shops and gas stations with motorists.

The snow dusted the Tehachapi, San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains throughout the day and began falling heavily in the late afternoon.

At 4:10 p.m., the California Highway Patrol was forced to close the Golden State Freeway in both directions along the Grapevine, sending traffic on a 100-mile detour through the Antelope Valley.

But that detour was blocked half an hour later when snow clogged the Antelope Valley Freeway near Agua Dulce.

The CHP closed a 12-mile segment of the Antelope Valley Freeway as well other routes such as Sierra Highway, Soledad Canyon Road and Bouquet Canyon Road, causing miles-long backups in both directions. Stalled cars littered the freeway, and many motorists were forced to walk back along the snowbound freeway to seek refuge.

Sierra Highway was opened to southbound traffic at 9:15 p.m. Caltrans officials said the Antelope Valley Freeway might reopen during the night.

The CHP began escorting both north and southbound traffic over the Grapevine on I-5 about 10 p.m., a spokesman said.

Some commuters chose to remain parked in line at the roadblocks, hoping that they would get through without having to spend the night.

More than 40,000 residents of the Antelope Valley are estimated to have jobs in the Los Angeles Basin. Those unable to return home packed restaurants, gas stations and motels, or sat in cars on the shoulder of the freeway and other routes linking the valleys.

Ten refugees from the storm showed up at a shelter the Red Cross set up in the Canyon Country High School gym.

The freeway was closed to northbound traffic at Escondido Canyon Road near Acton and to southbound traffic at Palmdale Boulevard in Palmdale. The 12-mile section in between was littered with snowbound cars. Tow truck operators shuttled some motorists back to roadblocks. Others had to walk, dodging snowplows.

“It was horribly frightening to be on that freeway,” said Mary Fairley, who was stranded on the freeway for two hours with a co-worker, Alberta Jones. Their car broke down while they were heading from their jobs at Rockwell International in Palmdale to homes in the San Fernando Valley.

“Cars were slipping and sliding everyplace,” Jones said. “Then my car just died. We sat for two hours and then walked to the roadblock.”

Commuters, tour buses, school buses and even fire engines were stuck in the snow.

Most of those stranded were taking the situation in good humor.

“It reminds me of my young snow days in Maine,” said Rose Loewe, 72, member of an 88-member church group that had been heading home in two buses after a gambling trip to Nevada. The buses were pulled off the freeway and waiting while the senior citizens drank coffee donated by a nearby Del Taco.

“This is the most exciting trip we have ever taken with this group,” Loewe said.

Carol Picott, assistant director of the Rainbow World Day Care Center in Palmdale, said stranded parents were unable to pick up eight young children by 7 p.m. and preparations were being made for a long wait.

“We are feeding them hot dogs,” Picott said. “We let them play in the snow. We are prepared to stay all night. We have cots, blankets and videos.”

Some residents who did make it home were called on to watch other parents’ children.

Gerald Howard left work in Saugus at 3:15 p.m. and needed five hours to make the usual hourlong trip to Lancaster. Once there, he was called on to watch the son of a neighbor who was stranded in the commuter snarl.

“I wasn’t surprised,” Howard said. “Things like this are happening all over the valley because there are so many commuters with children.”

On the other end of the closure, CHP officers directed northbound travelers back into Canyon Country to wait for the freeway to reopen. Many were heading in on foot.

Diane Acuna of Palmdale was walking on the freeway shoulder, carrying her 4-year-old daughter, Vanessa, wrapped tightly in a blanket. “I am very worried about my two kids at home because I can’t call them and they don’t know where I am,” she said.

She said she hoped that her boyfriend or relatives would realize that she was stranded and go to her home to care for the children.

On a Lockheed commuter bus carrying employees from Burbank to their homes in Palmdale and Lancaster, the mood was more jocular.

“We are moving two inches every half hour, so we are doing good,” said David Walker, a commercial artist.

Meanwhile, at Walker’s Lancaster home, his wife, Terri, was cooking chicken soup just as a treat for his return. “I thought he might like this after all he’s been through,” she said.

The snowfall and subsequent traffic nightmare were a boon to motel operators on both sides of the closure.

At the Country Inn in Canyon Country, manager Rick Fisher said he rented 36 rooms to stranded commuters between 4 and 5 p.m.

The Ramada Inn in Palmdale did better. “In 45 minutes, we sold 60 rooms,” manager Sixto Aspeitia said. “We do not know of any motels in Palmdale that have rooms left. We have a lobby full of people hoping we can put together a room for them. We might roll out the roll-away (beds) in the banquet room so people have a place to sleep.”

Scores of skiers were trapped at the mountain resort of Wrightwood in the San Gabriel Mountains, filling hotels and restaurants to capacity. California 2, which runs through Wrightwood, was closed on both sides of town, shutting off the community for the first time since a fierce storm in 1977, fire officials said. One man, undeterred, skied down the mountain in the center lane of the highway--between stranded cars.

Among those trapped were 36 children from the San Fernando Valley and Westside on an outing organized by the Sierra Ski and Pack Club, whose bus skidded off the road and into a snow bank. No one was injured in the mishap, but trip organizers called parents to tell them that they were looking for a place to stay and not to expect the children home.

By 5 p.m., a quarter inch of rain had fallen on the Los Angeles Civic Center, raising the season total to 5.53 inches, 0.40 of an inch above the normal total for the date.

The storm also caused a 100-foot section of the San Diego Freeway in Hawthorne to sink after heavy rain undermined its foundation Tuesday, closing one northbound lane, the CHP said.

Two lanes of the southbound Ventura Freeway north of Ventura have been closed since Sunday when the roadbed collapsed in the rain, leaving a hole “as deep as a car and as long as a semi,” a CHP dispatcher said.

An Orange County couple were rescued from the San Bernardino Mountains on Tuesday after being stranded on a rugged road near Lake Arrowhead for two days. Search teams made their way through the storm in snowshoes and on snowmobiles to find the couple near their vehicle, which they had just left to seek help.