Snow and Sunshine

Those who called Lynn Newcomb’s information line Saturday heard this recording: “It’s a gorgeous day with bright sunshine. Bring your suntan oil and probably bikinis today.”

Newcomb doesn’t manage a swimming pool or surfboard rental shop. He owns the Mt. Waterman ski lifts, and snow from Wednesday’s storm--along with the news reports it generated--hit Newcomb and other Southland ski resort owners with a blizzard of callers who got them to reopen after closing for the season.

Most local slopes haven’t been open this late in May in more than a decade. The blue skies and fresh white snow delighted skiers and snowboarders who didn’t even have to leave Los Angeles County.

“It’s crazy, there’s snow in May,” said Brett Wiley, who headed into Angeles National Forest from his Pasadena home for some Saturday morning snowboarding at Mt. Waterman. Wiley made the trip alone, because “my friends went surfing.”

By 10 a.m. Saturday about 100 skiers and snowboarders were shooting down Waterman’s slopes. “My friend was saying he was going to drive to Mammoth. I said, ‘Why bother?’ I got here in an hour-and-a-half,” said Edward Palen, 33, who lives in Marina del Rey.

Palen, who is from London, said he plans to e-mail friends in England to gloat over how he spent his day. “I might go to the beach later today,” he said before taking another sip from a can of Dutch beer.

Mitch Lookabaugh, 40, who works as a television production grip, said he turned down a job this weekend because of Wednesday’s snowfall. “I’d much rather go skiing than make money,” said the Granada Hills resident who planned to ski all day Saturday and return for another full day Sunday.

Mt. Waterman had closed after Easter. Newcomb said the slopes still had enough snow for skiing and snowboarding, but the number of customers begins to fall off in April as people turn to other outdoor sports.

Newcomb said the news reports about Wednesday’s storm reminded many that it’s still possible to ski. “The weather people helped,” he said.

The New Mountain High resort in Wrightwood and Snow Valley in Running Springs also reopened after shutting down for the season.

John Clark McColly, marketing and public relations manager at Mountain High, said it is “very, very unusual” to have so much snow in mid-May, and that the resort has not been open so late in May since the late 1980s.

McColly said about 1,200 customers visited the resort Saturday.

The springtime snow comes at the end of one of the wettest rainfall seasons in decades.

According to the National Weather Service, this season’s rainfall is the most in Los Angeles since the last El Nino hit in 1982-83.

Saturday’s snow in the sunshine was the silver lining to the season’s dark clouds.

At Mt. Waterman, Peter Muraoka, 29, was eating an early lunch on the hood of his car after two hours of morning snowboarding.

Soaking up the sun with his shirt off, the Westwood resident mulled the day’s options. “I was going to go to the beach and skate,” he said. Thinking aloud, he realized “the day’s still young, if we leave at 3 we can be at the beach.”

His friend Steve Holm, 27, suggested they ski all day, then head home. “Maybe we can barbecue, grill something,” he said.