Early Arrival of Snow Lifts Resorts’ Outlook

A blizzard of early snow has Golden State ski resorts seeing black -- as in profits.

Record-setting October storms dropped more than two feet of snow in the mountains of Southern California, enabling resorts to open their slopes in October, a month earlier than usual. At the San Bernardino Mountain resort area of Big Bear, two feet of snow fell during a single day in October. In 2002, only three feet of snow fell the entire year.

“We’re hoping this could be the year to beat all records,” said John McColly, spokesman for the Mountain High resort near Wrightwood. This year Mountain High opened in October for the first time since the resort debuted in the 1940s, and Thanksgiving weekend visits were up more than 30% over last year.

“If this isn’t the year we do it, I don’t know when is,” McColly said.

Getting so much snow so early in the season not only allows resorts not only to open earlier but also to open more of their trails and terrain to skiers and snowboarders -- an important lure for customers. Early storms also can reduce the need for costly man-made snow late in the season, which typically ends in April.

All of which could translate into big profits for an industry that has been battered by drought and sluggish business since the 1990s.

Big Bear Mountain Resorts opened its Bear Mountain and Snow Summit resorts in October for the first time in nearly three decades and their November visitors were up 60% from last year, marketing director Chris Riddle said.

“Everything is coming together for a great winter season,” said Riddle, whose company also operates Sierra Summit near Fresno. Even the closing of Highway 18 on weekdays for tree removal -- which has contributed to a 50% drop in mid-week business at Big Bear -- hasn’t damped Riddle’s enthusiasm.

Of course, resort owners had similarly high hopes last season, when heavy December snows portended a record year. But warm weather in March brought an unusually early snowmelt, and the year ended as simply good -- not great, said Riddle.

“We’re cautiously optimistic,” he said. “Until the snow crop is in we just don’t know. In a way, we are snow farmers. When the weather doesn’t cooperate it can be a tough season.”

Indeed, given this year’s El Nino conditions -- a cyclical weather pattern that typically produces wet but mild weather -- the National Weather Service isn’t predicting what will happen for the rest of the season. The last significant snow in Big Bear fell in early December and there is no snow in the seven-day or even in the 14-day forecast, the Weather Service said Friday.

For now though, resort operators are enjoying the ride. The snow-capped mountains visible to Southern Californians are the best advertising available and will help pull in more visitors, said McColly of Mountain High.

“They are our billboards,” he said.

For the Sprowls family of Huntington Beach, not only are Big Bear’s resorts close, but they’re also great places for 10-year-old William and 3-year-old Amanda to learn to snowboard and ski.

“The snow is fine, but we wouldn’t know the difference,” said Matt Sprowls. “Look, this isn’t Colorado, it isn’t Utah, it isn’t Tahoe. This is Big Bear. It’s close and it’s convenient.”

Resorts in other parts of the state also are benefiting from the early snowfalls. Mammoth Mountain in the Eastern Sierra, the state’s busiest ski resort with an average of 1.4 million visitors a year, opened in October for the first time in nearly 20 years.

Business at Mammoth, which has undergone almost $100 million in improvements in the last five years, is up 35% from last year, which was the resort’s best in 18 years, said Dana Vander Houwen, marketing manager.

“We’ve had a ton of snow this year,” she said.

Overall, skiing and snowboarding account for just 2% of California’s $75-billion tourism industry. But for mountain communities, ski resorts are crucial to their economies.

The state’s 38 alpine and cross-country ski resorts attract about 7.5 million visitors annually, generating about $350 million in ticket sales, according to state figures. And the effects are felt beyond the resorts, which make most of their money from selling lift tickets.

“We’re doing much better than last year, up about 30%,” said Peggy Ritenour, owner of Cozy Hollow Lodge, which rents 13 secluded cabins at Big Bear. At the larger Northwood Resorts and Conference Center, with 148 rooms, the story is the same.

“We’re almost completely sold out until mid-February on the weekends,” said Heather Durr, the front desk agent.

Nationwide, the ski industry has had three of its best years ever in the last four, as the popularity of snowboarding continues to be the growth area of the industry, said Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Assn., a national trade group.

That is especially true for Southern California’s resorts. At Mountain High, 70% of the visitors are snowboarders, and at Bear Mountain, that number rises to 80%, resort officers said. At Snow Summit, about 60% of visitors are snowboarders.

By comparison, 44% of visitors to mountain resorts in the entire Pacific West were snowboarders last year, the trade group found.

“What we are seeing are multi-generations for the first time since the 1960s,” he said. “The aging baby-boomers are bringing their kids, who snowboard while [their parents] ski.”