SKIING : Winter Running Into Spring Break

Spring may have arrived on the calendar, but it’s still winter in the mountains.

With snow continuing to fall in both the Southland and the Sierra, nearly all major resorts plan to operate daily at least through Easter Sunday, April 19, and a few--notably Mammoth Mountain, Alpine Meadows and Kirkwood--plan to stretch the season into May and possibly even June.

This week, many locations are in the throes of Spring Break. Bear Mountain, for example, offers a daily routine of activities consisting of the LeMans Downhill, Big Air With Bear Snowboard Jump, Dash for Cash, Carrera Sunglass Makeover, Pond Skimming Championships and Stretch Pants Showdown. The names are somewhat self-explanatory, except possibly for the pond-skimming event.

At 3 each afternoon through Sunday, contestants ski down a slope onto a three-foot-deep body of water, the idea then being to glide as far as possible before sinking--or freezing.

Snow Summit, Snow Valley, Snow Forest and Ski Green Valley are also welcoming spring breakers, with snow depths throughout the Big Bear region, before the current storm, ranging from 24 to 60 inches.

In the San Gabriel Mountains, Mountain High and Ski Sunrise, near Wrightwood, reported 40 to 70 inches Wednesday; Mt. Baldy had 60 to 96, Mt. Waterman 72 to 96 and Kratka Ridge 60 to 105. For a change, it appears that this is one season when the skiers will disappear before the snow.

The “White Circus” folded its tent last weekend at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, where Austrian Petra Kronberger won her third consecutive World Cup women’s overall title and Swiss Paul Accola gained his first men’s championship.

Kronberger wound up with 1,262 points, 51 more than runner-up Carole Merle of France. Accola finished with 1,699 to outdistance Alberto Tomba of Italy, who had 1,362, and defending champion Marc Girardelli of Luxembourg, who was third with 996.

The best U.S. overall placings were a 10th by Diann Roffe-Steinrotter of Potsdam, N.Y., in the women’s standings and a tie for 10th by AJ Kitt of Rochester, N.Y., among the men. Additionally, Roffe-Steinrotter was third in the giant slalom rankings, Kitt third in the downhill table.

Wednesday, Roffe-Steinrotter won the women’s super-G at Winter Park, Colo., opening event of the U.S. Alpine Skiing Championships, in 1:10.33, beating Olympic downhill silver medalist Hilary Lindh of Juneau, Alaska, by 0.46 of a second.

Roffe-Steinrotter, who turned 25 Tuesday, hedged when asked about her plans. “I’m not positive I’m going to race next year,” she told the Associated Press. “I need to sit down with team officials and have some discussions. I’d like a little more flexibility when it comes to travel--to allow me to spend more time with my husband.”

Erik Schlopy, 19, of Stowe, Vt., scored a surprise victory in the men’s super-G in 1:07.81, edging Paul Casey Puckett, also 19, of Wheatridge, Colo., by 0.09.

The Nationals, in which $100,000 is being awarded as prize money, continue with the women’s slalom and men’s giant slalom today, the women’s giant slalom and men’s slalom Friday, downhill training Saturday and Sunday, and both downhill races Monday. ESPN provides same-day coverage today at 5:30 p.m. and Friday at 5 p.m.

Sherwin Ski Area, Tom Dempsey’s proposed development next door to Mammoth Mountain, received a boost recently when F. Dale Robertson, chief of the U.S. Forest Service, issued a decision reaffirming previous permit approvals for what has been called “probably the last new ski area in California.”

That’s how the resort is described by Dempsey, a longtime resident of Mammoth Lakes, who hailed the announcement in Washington by saying: “We’ve spent 10 years of hard work and over $10 million on environmental studies. . . . We can now forge ahead with the master development plan for the ski area.

“We intend to coordinate closely with the (USFS) Regional office and the Inyo National Forest so that all legitimate environmental concerns can be resolved during the master planning process.”

When completed, the Sherwin Ski Area, adjacent to Dempsey’s 355-acre Snowcreek Resort, will have a daily capacity of 8,000 skiers, who will be able to ride nine lifts serving 1,800 acres of skiable terrain with a maximum vertical drop of 3,400 feet.

The cost? About $50 million, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Skiing Notes

Two events remain on the U.S. Pro Ski Tour--the U.S. Pro Championships at Vail/Beaver Creek, Colo., this weekend, in which the women will also compete, and the World Pro Championships at Aspen, Colo., April 3-5. Bernhard Knauss of Austria has already clinched the men’s title. . . . The U.S. Disabled Ski Team has entered 28 racers in the fifth Paralympic Winter Games being held at Tignes, France, through next Wednesday.

Mammoth Mountain is playing host to the U.S. Masters Championships through Saturday. . . . Jimmie Heuga’s Mazda Ski Express chugs into Squaw Valley Friday, before proceeding to Vail/Beaver Creek, Colo., for the National Finals April 8-12.

Spring skiing is also being celebrated in Utah, where Park City’s Snow Shine Festival continues through April 4, and in Colorado, where Telluride launches Surf the Rockies Week Sunday. . . . The fastest skiing cooks from around the nation will exchange recipes and slalom runs in the Grand Marnier Chefs National Championships at Taos Ski Valley, N.M., next Wednesday through April 5.