Local Resorts Hope to Take a Powder During Busy Times

It might feel a lot like Christmas, but it’s beginning to look a lot like a season with nothing to slide on locally but pine needles.

OK, so it has been cold enough recently to enable snow makers to blow snow day and night. And areas with snow-making equipment are boasting of slopes layered with fluffy white powder.

But what lies beyond that powder?

“Right off of those trails are nothing but pine cones and needles and brush,” says Dave Wilson, general manager of Big Air Winter Park in Green Valley, between Big Bear and Running Springs. “You can have the greatest snow-making systems in the world but real snow is the real deal and you can’t beat it.”

Yes, Wilson is among those who rely solely on the real deal, of which there is very little, while all around him--at Big Bear Mountain, Snow Summit and Snow Valley--they’re grooming their slopes in preparation for the busiest week of the season.

“We resumed our snow-making operation [on Sunday] and have been making snow 24 hours a day since,” says Genevieve Paquet, spokeswoman for Snow Summit. “Most of our mountain should be open for the holidays.”

Snow Summit and Big Bear Mountain have in Big Bear Lake a seemingly endless supply of water with which to make their snow, but Snow Valley draws its water from wells, and operators at that resort, while they are still shooting snow all over the place, say they could use a little help from Mother Nature.

Wilson, meanwhile, could use a lot of help if he’s going to break even this season. He says he will have missed out on a third of the season by the end of the holidays and is concerned about predictions that this weather pattern will hold throughout much of the rest of the season.

And he’s not alone. There are some small-time ski operations scattered throughout Southland mountain ranges that have a hard enough time competing with the bigger resorts even when there is abundant snow.

Now they’re reduced to playing a waiting game and trying to keep the interest of prospective customers with recorded messages such as this one at Mount Waterman off the Angeles Crest Highway west of Wrightwood:

“Here it is another beautiful day. It really is gorgeous outside, about 28 degrees and the wind is blowing and the ground is well covered with about four to eight inches of snow [from Sunday’s brief fall]. . . . All we need is another six-eight inches or so and we can all go skiing.”

At Ski Sunrise in Wrightwood, they’re taking a more subtle approach.

“We have received some snow but not enough to offer the type of service we feel you deserve at Ski Sunrise,” the recording says.

At nearby Mountain High, which does boast a state-of-the-art snow-making system, several runs are open on a base of two to three feet.

But if it’s the real deal you’re looking for, you’ll have to look elsewhere, and there’s no better place to look than north.

At Mammoth Mountain, for example, there’s not only a base of four to five feet of mostly natural snow, there’s also a new gondola system that went into operation last Friday, taking skiers and boarders from mid-mountain to the top four times faster than the old system, which opened in 1968.

“Everyone seems to be really stoked about it,” says Mammoth’s Joani Saari. “It can handle 2,400 riders an hour, while the old one could only do 400-600 people an hour.”

At Lake Tahoe, the situation is even better. In fact, the Tahoe region is offering probably the best holiday skiing in the country, thanks to a series of storms that have built base depths to five feet or more at resorts on the north, south and west shores.

The latest one last weekend dumped more than a foot of powder, assuring holiday skiers ideal skiing and boarding conditions and prompting Heavenly spokeswoman Monica Bandows to proclaim, “Yes, there is a Santa Claus.”

To this, Wilson might reply, “Bah, humbug.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SKI REPORT

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

Thursday Measurements

CALIFORNIA

*--*

Ski Areas New Base Alpine Meadows -- 48-90 Badger Pass -- 36-60 Bear Valley -- 42-44 Big Bear Mountain -- 24-60 Boreal Mountain -- 54-72 Dodge Ridge -- 24-43 Donner Ski Ranch -- 60-66 Heavenly -- 48-78 June Mountain Resort -- 12-36 Kirkwood -- 65-97 Mammoth Mountain -- 48-60 New Mountain High -- 18-36 Mt. Shasta -- 34-66 Northstar-at-Tahoe -- 34-72 Sierra-at-Tahoe -- 36-84 Ski Homewood -- 22-77 Snow Valley -- 24-28 Soda Springs -- 36-60 Squaw Valley USA -- 35-75 Tahoe Donner -- 36-54

*--*

COLORADO

*--*

Ski Areas New Base Arapahoe Basin -- 20-22 Aspen -- 22-28 Aspen Highlands -- 34-38 Beaver Creek -- 21-31 Berthoud Pass -- 23 Breckenridge -- 21 Buttermilk -- 24-26 Copper Mountain -- 26 Crested Butte -- 22-27 Cuchara Mountain Resort -- 24 Eldora Mountain -- 28 Howelsen -- 16 Keystone -- 22 Loveland -- 22 Monarch -- 36 Powderhorn -- 22 Purgatory -- 41 Silver Creek Resort -- 15 Ski Cooper -- 18-20 Snowmass -- 25-40 Steamboat -- 23-26 Sunlight -- 33 Telluride -- 42 Vail -- 25-26 Winter Park -- 24-34 Wolf Creek 1 73-80

*--*

UTAH

*--*

Ski Areas New Base Alta -- 43 Brian Head -- 54 Brighton -- 37 Deer Valley -- 28 Elk Meadows -- 50 Park City -- 39 Mountain -- 27 Snowbird -- 42 Solitude -- 37 Sundance -- 18 The Canyons -- 22

*--*