SKIING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Clear Skies Have Them a Bit Under the Weather

Mary Anderson, 71, looked skyward Tuesday to both the beauty and the bane.

“We’ve got just the most gorgeous day you could ever imagine,” she said. “Clear skies, no wind, no clouds, no snow. Just beautiful.”

This was all disturbing news, but Anderson seemed to be holding up well. For 25 years, she has been caretaker/groundskeeper/housekeeper at Mt. Waterman, one of Southern California’s older and lesser-known ski areas.

Unlike the powders-that-be in the local mountains, who can offset the lack of snow with state-of-the-art snow-making capabilites, Mt. Waterman is at the mercy of the snow gods.

“Our snow comes from heaven, not from hoses,” Anderson said.

Waterman was born in 1939, when Lynn Newcomb hitched up a rope tow and called it a ski area. Little has changed since. Located on the Angeles Crest Highway in the San Gabriel Mountains, about a 45-minute drive from La Canada, Mt. Waterman has expanded over the years to three chair lifts and 25 trails.

It has long been a skier’s hideaway known for its steep terrain.

Now in his 70s, Newcomb still runs the place, having inherited Mt. Waterman from his father after World War II.

The Mt. Waterman ski report that Newcomb narrates is worth the price of a phone call. It is mash-potato homespun and to the point.

“Folks, it’s a mess up here on the roads so don’t even bother coming up,” Newcomb is apt to say.

Tuesday, Newcomb was out on the tractor smoothing down trails for opening day, whenever that day might come.

Because of lack of snow in 1984, Mt. Waterman didn’t open at all. In 1991, opening day came March 2.

“We’ll get it,” Anderson said of the snow. “It’s still a little early.”

But getting later by the minute. On a clear day from down in the basin, the mountains are still mostly snow-bare as Christmas approaches. This is somewhat deceiving in that the larger areas--Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, Snow Valley and Mountain High--are all open on a limited basis because the weather has been cold enough to make snow.

Mt. Baldy, however, which has settled its local water disputes and upgraded its snow-making abilities, remains closed because the cold weather has strangely taken a detour past its ridges.

“The cold air hasn’t been coming over into the L.A. Basin,” said John Koulouris, a Mt. Baldy spokesman. “It’s going to the back side toward Mountain High (Wrightwood) and Big Bear. The temperature difference can be as much as 15 to 20 degrees between Big Bear and here.”

Koulouris said Baldy will not open until the first significant storm of the season.

Operators might be growing nervous, especially in light of last year’s fantastic season.

But Koulouris points out that Mt. Baldy--even last year--did not open until Dec. 2.

Wrightwood’s Ski Sunrise, which has not had snow-making in the past, has added the capability this year as part of $250,000 in upgrades and improvements since being purchased July 1 by Table Mountain Ski Lifts (TMSL Inc.).

The area hopes to open some beginner terrain by the weekend.

In the meantime, Mary Anderson tends to business at Mt. Waterman, getting the mountain ready.

“We’re not crying too hard,” she said. “As long as we get three months of winter, that’s good enough. Once, we were open 45 days before Mammoth. It just goes that way.”

The goal this week was trying to repair the furnace. Anderson called some professionals out, but they mucked up the job.

“I had to do to it all over again,” she said. “I do everything that needs to be done and things that nobody wants to do. If I have to clean toilets, I’ll clean toilets.”

The job gets better as the snow flies, at which time Anderson trades in her tools and towels to become part of Mt. Waterman’s 70-and-over ski patrol.

Ski Notes

Enduring a season-opening slump in an Olympic year, slalom specialist Julie Parisien has agreed to drop Rob Clayton as her personal coach and will rejoin the U.S. ski team program, Paul Major, the USST Alpine director, said this week.

Parisien had requested the individual coaching in the wake of an emotional year in which her brother, Jean-Paul, was killed in a auto accident. But Parisien, the top U.S medal hope in slalom, has not cracked the top 30 in a World Cup slalom or giant slalom this year.

“Julie is at an all-time low,” Major said. “She has zero confidence. She has no results. She’s really struggled over the past few months.” Major said that moving Parisien back into a team program was “my decision in working with Julie.” Clayton, who had been Parisien’s B-team coach, will be re-assigned. . . . The one bright spot for the U.S. women thus far has been 24-year-old Heidi Voelker, who followed two top-20 finishes in Santa Caterina, Italy, with a fifth-place in giant slalom last Sunday at Tignes, France. It was Voelker’s highest finish in a World Cup competition.

In preparation for the first World Cup men’s downhill this weekend at Val D’Isere, France, AJ Kitt has shaved his head. Kitt won the Val D’Isere downhill two years ago and was leading last year when weather forced a cancellation. “He’s looking for a three-peat,” Major said.

Mammoth Mountain is going to have a hard time matching last year’s performance, when it recorded a resort-record 607 inches of snowfall, but spokeswoman Pam Murphy said the area is not that far behind where it was at this time last year. Mammoth opened Nov. 5 this year, compared to Oct. 28 last year. “We’ve received over three feet of snow,” she said. “Quantity-wise, it’s about the same. Where we went nuts last year was after the 27th of December.”

The U.S men’s pro ski tour opens this weekend at Alpine Meadows at Tahoe City. Racing begins Friday with qualifying races, followed by a Saturday slalom and a Sunday giant slalom. Among the expected participants will be Austria’s Bernhard Knauss, a three-time U.S. pro ski champion, and Norway’s Ove Nygren, a three-time world champion.