The nasty, numbing task of fakin’ it

Big Bear Lake — Everybody TALKS ABOUT THE WEATHER. THESE GUYS are doing something. From a distance, their dark figures half lost in the pale landscape, they look like an old photo of coal miners at quitting time. Then they step closer and you see their covered faces, the whites of the eyes peeking out, and you think of Mexican wrestlers and Shiite housewives.

But those jobs are part of a warmer world. These men and their labors in the cold, damp dark are the secret force that drives the Southern California ski and snowboard season. They are snow-makers.

They punch in as the sun turns away from the San Bernardino Mountains, pull on those masks and headphones to face the roaring cold, then huddle to get their orders from a harried man who watches the temperature and humidity the way Alan Greenspan watches leading economic indicators. And then, while you and I sleep, they trudge out into the Big Bear night by the dozens to coat the slopes -- more than 400 acres, if you add up resort operations at Snow Summit and Bear Mountain.

Very physically demanding job, says the Big Bear Mountain Resorts’ workers-wanted website. Requires night work and on-call status. Outdoor work in all winter weather. Must be at least 18 years old.

“It’s a little physical, that’s all,” says Danny Lopez, 27, who is in his second season at Snow Summit. “But you do have hard nights, windy nights. And we can do 14 hours a night, seven days a week when it’s really pumping.... When you come off a 14-hour shift, you just want to get home and get rest before you come back out. Plus, I have two kids. And a day job. Carpentry.”

They make $7.50 to $12 an hour. Most are in their 20s. Though women have done it, this season at Snow Summit and Bear Mountain they’re all men. Some drive in from Redlands, Victorville and San Bernardino and some speak only Spanish.

“You’ve got to be young and strong to be a snow-maker. It’s a brutal business,” says Chris Bowman, compressor plant supervisor at Bear Mountain.

The rank-and-file snowmakers spend most of their shifts jockeying snowmobiles, clambering up hills and wrestling pressurized guns and hoses into position. Sometimes guns fail or hoses burst. Sometimes snowmobiles crash.

I won’t argue that these guys can match Mother Nature. For all the advances in snow-making since its earliest days in Connecticut 53 years ago, the man-made stuff is still denser, heavier. When I hurtle down Bear Mountain’s seminatural slopes -- yes, I am that relentless in my fact-gathering for you, dear reader -- the edges beneath my boots shriek for a surface a little softer, deeper, airier, quieter. It’ll come, I’m sure.

Meanwhile, some people shriek over fake snow for other reasons. Making it requires hefty amounts of water and energy, and many resorts (including Snow Valley) use chemical additives, a practice that has drawn protests from environmentalists worried about effects downstream. Bear Mountain and Snow Summit say they don’t do that.

In any event, it’s a booming business, and if the planet keeps heating up the way many scientists say that it will, many of the low-lying ski mountains that have stayed all-natural so far, especially in Europe, have perhaps 50 years to start making snow or die.

Bear Mountain and Snow Summit, both owned by Big Bear Mountain Resorts, have each been making snow for more than 40 years, getting their water from Big Bear Lake. (As management is quick to point out, about half of the water they buy eventually trickles back into the lake.)

To manufacture snow when nature is unwilling, to spread it over a mountain, to coax thousands of skiers and snowboarders to lay out up to $55 for the chance to spend a day falling in a more-or-less controlled manner -- this is no small job, and it keeps changing.

In the last few years, both have been replacing older compressed air guns with newfangled fan guns, which run more quietly, use less energy, and in the right conditions, can pump out twice as much snow. Snow Summit says it spent $5 million this year on snow-making upgrades and a new power generation plant.

Before the snow-makers can start, the “wet bulb” temperature -- a combination of temperature and humidity -- usually must sink to 28 degrees.

On one such night at Bear Mountain, the wet-bulb temp is down to 22 degrees, and the metal shed that holds the resort’s air compressors is roaring like a battleship engine room on overdrive. Upstairs in the control room, a gaggle of snow specialists stands scrutinizing a console full of pump gauges and a computer. Its readings show how much energy the resort is using, and how much is left for the rest of Big Bear Valley. If the resort is using one-third of the electricity in the valley, it’s situation normal.

“If you push too many buttons, you can black the town out,” says Bowman. “I’ve seen it done.” A moment later, plant operator Mike Stevenson spots a trend in the readings and starts barking into a microphone to somebody out on the slopes.

“Alex,” he says. “Go ahead and start some more fan guns.”

Over at Snow Summit, snow-making supervisor Rick Sluder, 50, has a shift change underway. He stands at a display board, surrounded by a dozen snow-makers, marking priority spots. “This time of year is really critical. You don’t want to miss a minute of snow-making,” says Sluder. “It’s Southern California. There’s never going to be enough snow.”

Then the snow-makers start filing out, clowning and cradling cigarettes, adjusting their green radio headphones, pulling on orange gloves. Lopez, the father and moonlighter, is one of them. He wiggles his fingers, takes a step toward the cold, dark and wet, then pauses to grin and throw a benediction back at the room, like a metal guitarist accepting an encore.

“Rock and roll!” he says.

Danny Lopez, we who are about to schuss salute you.

To e-mail Christopher Reynolds, read his previous Wild West columns and view his photos, go to latimes.com/chrisreynolds.