Snow Hits Olympic Levels at Mt. Baldy

While whiteout conditions forced one postponement after another of the skiing and snowboarding events at the Nagano Games, John Koulouris made the comment, “They should hold the Olympics at Baldy.”

Fat chance of that ever happening, but Koulouris’ point was well made.

Heavy snow also fell throughout the San Gabriel Mountains last weekend, and the Mount Baldy ski area was one of the prime beneficiaries.

“The storm was so brutal that we couldn’t keep up with it,” said Koulouris, a spokesman for the resort. “We couldn’t even open Sunday because we were buried. We got 2-3 feet in the parking lot, and that’s only at 6,400 feet.”

Anyone familiar with Baldy knows what that means: the opening of half a dozen black-diamond and double black-diamond chutes beneath Chair 1, which takes skiers from the parking lot to the upper runs, and the extension of vertical drop from less than 1,000 feet to 2,100 feet, giving Baldy the Southland’s longest nonstop skiable terrain from top to bottom.

On Tuesday morning the storm had cleared and the region was blanketed with three feet of fresh powder, on a base of three to six feet.

“The last time we had this much snow was 1993,” Koulouris said. “We had such great skiing that every ski magazine featured us and they made two films here.”

The skiing remained excellent through the week, but as Baldy regulars are well aware, the runs beneath Chair 1 don’t hold up nearly as well as the upper trails and it takes only a short mild spell to slush things up.

In other words, get it while it’s hot or hope the next storm is as cold as the last one.

Somewhat surprisingly, the San Gabriels have borne the brunt of weather systems, and the base depths of many San Gabriel ski areas exceed those of San Bernardino mountain resorts by as much as two feet.

“The skiing is incredible,” John McColly, a spokesman for Mountain High at the other end of the San Gabriels in Wrightwood, said Monday. “I just came back from [Mountain High East] and one of the best powder days of my life.”

OLYMPIC MOMENT

Snow was falling on the slopes of Lake Tahoe area resorts again Thursday, adding to base depths ranging from eight to 11 feet, and an additional 10-15 inches is expected this weekend.

While all is heavenly at Heavenly and the outlook is bright at Northstar, they’re downright giddy at Squaw.

Freestyle skier Jonny Moseley struck gold at Nagano.

Moseley learned to ski at Squaw Valley USA and trained and competed as a member of the Squaw Valley Freestyle Team.

Before he left for Japan, team Coach Raymond deVre predicted that Moseley would “be at the podium” during the medal ceremony.

After Moseley’s thrilling performance on the moguls at Nagano, the Tiburon, Calif., resident left a message on the answering machine in the freestyle team locker room: “I’ve done it! I won the Olympic gold medal. This is the greatest feeling of my life and you all are part of it. You [deVre] helped make me who I am today--you guys are the best and this is for you.”

DeVre is traveling with the Squaw freestyle team in Calgary.

“He hasn’t heard the message, but he’s heard about it,” said Alex West, a spokesman for the resort, located in the north Lake Tahoe area between Tahoe City and Truckee. “Everybody’s psyched about it. The team was carrying him through the bars of Calgary on their shoulders.”

Squaw has a history of producing great skiers. Jimmy Huega and Greg Jones won Olympic bronze medals in 1964 and 1976, respectively. Former World Cup champion Tamara McKinney still skis there, and former Olympians Bob Ormsby and Kristin Krone are staff members of Squaw’s performance racing team. Marcus Nash, a member of the cross-country team at Nagano, is also a product of Squaw, site of the 1960 Winter Olympics.

STAY IN BOUNDS

One cannot help but feel for the family of the 14-year-old snowboarder who has been missing since he and his uncle went snowboarding last Saturday at Mountain High in Wrightwood.

But one cannot help but wonder why they felt it necessary to stray from the cordoned-off area when there was so much fresh powder on the slopes of the resort.

“I guess the mountain’s comment would be, ‘Those out-of-bounds markers are there for a reason,’ ” Mountain High’s McColly said.

By Thursday afternoon, a weeklong search had failed to turn up Jeff Thornton of Brawley, whose 30-year-old uncle believed the teen was following him. This is not surprising, considering that heavy snow and high winds swept over the region for two days after the boy was noticed missing Saturday afternoon. There are several steep canyons adjacent to the ski area, with high avalanche potential and incredibly deep snow drifts.

“It’s just sheer madness leaving the organized area after [or during] during a storm like that,” said Jim Wilkins, a San Bernardino County fireman who was director of the Mountain High ski patrol for 12 years. “The best skiing is on the groomed runs, anyway. And they usually leave plenty of powder for powder skiing.

“In this case it just doesn’t make sense.”