SKIING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Rough Year for Local Resorts

A quick phone check of local ski reports told the sad story.

Mt. Waterman? Closed.

Kratka Ridge? Closed.

Ski Sunrise? Closed.

Mt. Baldy? Open . . . but you’d better get there fast.

What happened to spring skiing?

Forget that. What happened to skiing?

Although Southern California ski powerhouses--the Big Three at Big Bear and Mountain High--can boast of solid late-season conditions, the same cannot be said for smaller operators.

“A rough year,” said Phil Edholm, general manager at Wrightwood’s Ski Sunrise. “It’s been skinny.”

Ski Sunrise, which in a normal year can expected to be open 115 days, has been operational only half as many this season.

Small operators were hanging the rest of their seasons on the snow-making strength of last week’s storm.

But while the system produced 12 to 15 inches of new snow at Mt. Waterman, it allowed the area to reopen for only a couple of days. Mt. Waterman closed again Monday, probably for the rest of the season.

“It was real good snow,” said Mary Anderson, Mt. Waterman’s longtime caretaker. “But there was no real base. You sunk right through it.”

Waterman, usually operational for three months in good years, was open a month and a half this season.

Recent storms allowed Mt. Baldy to reopen last week, but warm temperatures threaten that status.

Even Snow Summit in Big Bear, which plans to remain open until April 17, has discontinued night skiing.

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Some thoughts on Julie Parisien, who recently decided to put her race career on hold. Parisien, the athlete, thought she had to be tough. Toughness made her a world-class skier, a three-time World Cup winner.

When her brother and mentor, Jean-Paul, was killed by a drunk driver in December of 1992, Parisien the athlete jumped back into racing and put on a brave face. She thought she could turn grief into victories and leave a legacy for J.P.

Parisien, the sister, was not up to the task.

Three weeks ago, before the World Cup races at Mammoth, Parisien announced she was taking a sabbatical at age 22.

Whether she returns is anyone’s guess. It is not important, really, unless it is important to Parisien.

Understand, she cannot return to racing and not be reminded of J.P., the brother who first introduced the family to racing at the Burke Mountain Academy.

This is Julie’s dilemma.

She almost quit the U.S. team last December, around the one-year anniversary of J.P.’s death, but decided to stick it out through the Olympics. At Lillehammer, however, she put unrealistic pressure on herself to win the gold.

When she failed--missing a gate on her second run of Olympic slalom--Parisien knew she needed time away.

She wobbled into the World Cup races at Mammoth on March 7, thinking she was going to race. Upon arrival, she learned that Derek Bonney, the drunk driver responsible for J.P.’s death, was scheduled for sentencing in Maine the following Thursday, the day Parisien was supposed to race the Mammoth slalom.

Parisien once said she didn’t care what became of the man who killed her brother. She was wrong.

The night of March 7, in her Mammoth hotel room, Parisien suffered an emotional breakdown, worse than the one suffered when she first learned of J.P.’s death.

“It opened my grieving all over again,” Parisien said. “It was completely unexpected, but my grieving just got worse and worse. I guess I’ve really delayed my grieving until now. It hit me hard.”

Parisien left Mammoth the next day and flew home for the sentencing of Bonney, who received four years on manslaughter and drunken driving charges.

Parisien spoke in open court about the man who had taken her brother and now, possibly, her career.

Parisien isn’t sure what she’ll do next. Maybe facing Bonney face-to-face was the closure she needed to get on with her life.

Parisien plans on enrolling at the University of Colorado. She has talked of becoming a waitress. Next summer, she says, she will re-evaluate her race career.

Paul Major, the U.S. Alpine Director, thinks Parisien will eventually return to racing. He says she is capable of rekindling the form that once made her No. 1 in the world in the slaloms.

More important: Is that what Parisien wants?

Skiing Notes

Steve Persons, 24, who won the giant slalom at the first U.S. Snowboarding Championships last week at June Mountain, Calif., is the step-brother of Tommy Moe, the Olympic downhill champion. In a random draw, Persons, from Whitefish, Mont., selected bib No. 8, the number Moe wore on his gold-medal run at Lillehammer. . . . Persons was one of five boarders who earned positions on the first U.S. team, which begins World Cup competition next season. The others were Tom Tuttle (Mammoth Lakes), Ross Powers (South Londonderry, Vt.), Stacia Hookman (Vail, Colo.) and Sabrina Sadeghi (Aspen, Colo.). Additional members of the team will be selected after summer training camps.

On April 14, Picabo Street, the Olympic downhill silver medalist, will be an “honored guest” of the New York Yankees on opening day. She will not, however, throw out the first ball. The Yankees have reserved that honor for some guy named DiMaggio. Street, who won last week’s downhill title at the U.S. Alpine Championships at Winter Park, Colo., plans to race through the North American Championship Series, which began Monday and continues through Tuesday, at Mt. Bachelor in Oregon.

Moe, 24, says he will remain in ski racing until near the end of the century. “I’m young,” he said. “I’d like to race in ’98 and defend the ol’ Olympic title. Look at Marc Girardelli. He’s 30. There are a lot of skiers in their mid-20s doing well. I can see myself doing it for four more years. There are a lot of things I can accomplish.” . . . With 1,007 points, Girardelli, the one-man team from Luxembourg, scored more World Cup points this season than nine countries . . . Ann Van Eps of Los Angeles won the 41-and-older division race in the recent Absolut Vodka Bartenders Ski Classic at Bear Mountain.