Resorts Are Awaiting a Flurry of Activity

Winter took a slight detour in the Southland this week, but it’s more or less on track at Mammoth Mountain and in the rest of the High Sierra as Thanksgiving approaches.

Mammoth, with 42-60 inches of packed powder on the slopes, will run all but five of its 31 lifts for skiing and snowboarding during the four-day weekend and claims to be only one storm away from full operation.

Around the Lake Tahoe basin, Alpine Meadows, Boreal, Kirkwood and Mt. Rose (Nevada) are open on a limited basis, with Squaw Valley, Heavenly, Northstar-at-Tahoe and Sugar Bowl set to join them today. Tahoe Donner, Ski Homewood, Soda Springs, Bear Valley and Dodge Ridge plan to start Thursday.

The outlook isn’t quite as cheery at Big Bear, where Bear Mountain was the only ski area hanging in there Tuesday, offering patrons four runs served by two lifts. Snow Summit and Snow Valley have closed temporarily, but anticipated Santa Ana winds should drop temperatures into the snow-making range, and both are hopeful of reopening for at least part of the long weekend.

Mountain High also is awaiting more frigid conditions after the warm rains of recent days.

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“America’s Opening” at Park City, Utah, last weekend turned out as expected, with European racers beating the U.S. ski team on its home snow.

In four days of men’s and women’s competition, only Matt Grosjean of Steamboat Springs, Colo., was able to score Alpine World Cup points for America. He finished 22nd in Sunday’s slalom--Thomas Sykora of Austria won--and ranks 46th in the men’s overall standings with nine points.

Another Austrian, Josef Strobl, won the men’s giant slalom Monday, and Claudia Riegler, an Austrian skiing for New Zealand, took the women’s slalom Saturday, two days after Italian Sabina Panzanini’s victory in the women’s giant slalom.

It looks like more of the same for the U.S. men this weekend at Breckenridge, Colo., where another slalom-giant slalom doubleheader is scheduled.

American women, however, should finally get on the board at Lake Louise, Alberta, where it’s Picabo time once again. Picabo Street, the two-time World Cup downhill champion and gold medalist in the 1996 World Alpine Championships, will lead a strong U.S. contingent in the season’s first downhill and super-G.

“She’s really skiing well in training,” team spokeswoman Deborah Engen said from Park City on Tuesday. “And so are Hilary Lindh and Megan Gerety. We’re expecting great results from all three of them.”

Street, who has fully recovered from last spring’s foot surgery, is coming off a busy summer of endorsements, commercial photo shoots and personal appearances. Have these distractions affected her skiing? The rest of the world’s female racers hope so.

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In a breakthrough of sorts, Tim Tetreault of Norwich, Vt., gave the United States a rare top-10 finish in a World Cup Nordic combined event last weekend at Rovaniemi, Finland.

Tetreault, 26, placed third in the jumping portion of the competition, then skied well enough in the 15-kilometer cross-country race the next day to finish fourth overall behind Finland’s Jari Mantila.

Skiing Notes

The first World Cup men’s downhill and super-G races are scheduled Dec. 7-8 at Whistler Mountain, B.C., but may be moved to Lake Louise if snow conditions don’t improve at the resort north of Vancouver, Canada. . . . Mammoth Mountain will be the first stop in the Jeep King of the Mountain downhill series Dec. 6-7.

“Snowriders,” the new film by Warren Miller, will be shown Saturday at 6 and 9 p.m. at the Civic Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks. . . . Bob Beattie starts his 11th season as host of ESPN’s “Chevy Truck Ski World” Sunday with a program that includes an interview with Picabo Street. If by some chance you miss it at 4:30 a.m., it will be rerun at midnight--and again at 1 p.m. next Wednesday.