El Nino a Welcome Visitor at Slopes

As sure as there will be broken bones and melting snow, the mountains of California also will serve up month after month of good, clean, fast-sliding fun for skiers and snowboarders this season.

El Nino will make sure of that. Or so resort operators say as they gaze skyward, hoping that this week’s storms are paving the way for many more.

“Here at Mammoth, we love El Nino,” says Pam Murphy, marketing director at Mammoth Mountain and a lifelong resident of the area. “El Nino has been very good for us.”

History proves her right. During the El Nino winter of 1982-83, which everyone is comparing to the hyped-up El Nino winter of 1997-98, the heavens dumped a whopping 567 inches of white stuff in a series of storms that kept skiers knee-deep in powder from Oct. 31 to July 28.

It was one of the great seasons, with 104 inches of snow falling in December, 100 in January and 119 in February. A near-record 1.2 million people had gone up and down the mountain by season’s end. The following winter, when 510 inches of snow blanketed the region, a record 1.4 million skier-visits were recorded.

“It just fell out of the sky,” Murphy recalls. “At one point it fell for what seemed to be about a six-week period without stopping.”

Here in our backyard, in the San Gabriels and San Bernardinos, El Nino-induced optimism is running high, despite forecasts that El Nino-driven storms are warmer and will produce more wet than white.

“We’ve heard just about everything possible in terms of weather,” says Judi Bowers, spokeswoman for Big Bear Lake’s Bear Mountain, whose base is at 7,140 feet and whose highest run is at 8,805 feet. “We expect snow rather than a lot of rain, but do expect there to be some rain as well.

“According to some research I’ve read, the season in ’83 opened with three feet of natural snow and continued with snowstorms throughout the winter and lasted until the end of April.”

In the San Gabriels, it was a similar story in 1982-83.

“All I know is that we got an awful lot of snow,” recalls Jim Wilkins, 50, who since 1972 has worked off and on as director of the ski patrol at Mountain High, formerly Holiday Hill. “It came early and lasted all season. I remember two or three storms incapacitated the whole town [of Wrightwood]. It got to where the snow-moving equipment just couldn’t keep up.”

In the Lake Tahoe area, despite its fairly low elevation, some rain fell on the slopes in 1982-83, but more often there were blizzards.

At Heavenly Valley, on Lake Tahoe’s south shore, a record 462 inches fell, including 85 inches in February and 86 inches in March.

Monica Bandows, a spokeswoman for Heavenly, won’t even venture a guess as to what this winter will be like. Looking at a Sierra Pacific Power Co. chart plotting the region’s snowfall over the last 100 years, she said there has been no discernible pattern.

“There is no rhyme or reason to it at all,” she says. “Looking at the chart, you see no patterns, no 10-year patterns, no patterns whatsoever.

“But 1982-83 was a great year with a lot of snow, so if people say this is setting up to be like that season, then bring it on.”

The second storm of the season was more like it, dumping enough snow on local slopes Wednesday to allow for openings at each of the Southland’s four major ski areas and inundating Mammoth Lakes and the Lake Tahoe area.

Bear Mountain and Snow Summit in Big Bear Lake received five to 10 inches of new snow and will open today on a limited basis. It’s the same story at nearby Snow Valley, where several beginner to intermediate trails are expected to be open. As of late Thursday morning, roads were open but chains were required.

Mountain High in Wrightwood was the only local area open Thanksgiving Day, thanks to three to five inches of new snow. The facility on Thursday reported a 10- to 12-inch base on several beginner to intermediate trails serviced top to bottom by three chairs.

Mammoth Mountain received three to five feet of snow, enough to warrant the opening of 11 chairs servicing parts of the upper and lower mountain. The terrain park for snowboarders is also open.

In the Lake Tahoe area, snowfall totals varied from one to four feet, which added to well-established bases of mostly machine-groomed snow. Alpine Meadows, for example, received 18-24 inches from the latest storm and today will have skiing for all levels on nine runs serviced by five chairs.

Heavenly Valley reported similar snowfalls and has six lifts and seven runs open.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SKI CONDITIONS

This report is furnished by the Associated Press. Be advised that skiing conditions change constantly as the result of weather factors and skier use.

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Thursday Measurements Ski Areas New Base CALIFORNIA Alpine Meadows 22-30 24-48 Boreal 6 36 Heavenly 8-21 16-36 Kirkwood 24-36 24-42 Mammoth Mtn 36-60 24 Mountain High 3-5 10-12 Northstar at Tahoe 6-10 12-26 Sierra at Tahoe 12-16 18-36 Squaw Valley USA 7-14 12-48 Tahoe Donner 12 12 COLORADO Arapahoe Basin 2 32-33 Aspen Mtn 3-5 22-28 Beaver Creek 3 19-35 Breckenridge 1 24 Copper Mtn 3 23 Crested Butte 1-11 32-34 Keystone 2 21-22 Loveland 2 27 Purgatory 16 32-40 Snowmass 6-8 28-40 Steamboat 1 24-31 Telluride 12 32-38 Vail 3 16-28 Wolf Creek 12 42-44

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