Late Snow Jump-Starts Southland Ski Season

RUNNING SPRINGS, Calif. —  “Helloooo snow!” Che Begay was wearing four shirts, two pairs of pants and a pair of bright orange goggles that dangled from a band around his neck. It was New Year’s Day, he was leaning on a snowboard at the Snow Valley Mountain Resort in the San Bernardino Mountains, and he was feeling pretty smug about life in the 21st century.

“It’s crazy,” the 28-year-old electrician from San Bernardino was saying. “Because all last year we had nothing but sunshine.” And now, here it was a new year, a new century, and all of a sudden--whoa!--the mountains were full of snow!

“Gotta go, man,” Begay said, and was off up the mountain, talking about 360s and how he absolutely, positively was not going to fall--”hopefully.”

Wet weather may have dampened the Y2K celebration in Southern California, but it brought the first snow of the season to the region’s mountains, cause enough for celebration as far as some people were concerned.

“This is the Y2K dream,” said Paul Bauer, vice president for operations at Snow Valley, which sits at 6,800 feet, midway between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear Lake. “Snow on New Year’s Eve--you’ve gotta love it. It’s like a new bike at Christmas.”

The snow began falling at about 4 p.m. Friday and let up after three or four hours, Bauer said. It dumped one inch at Mt. Wilson, according to the National Weather Service, and two or more inches at Snow Valley, which, like other resorts in the region, has been manufacturing snow for the past month or so.

New Year’s Eve is somewhat later than usual for the first snow of the season, but far from a record, meteorologist Bruce Rockwell of the weather service said. There’s a chance of more snow later this week, he said, perhaps Wednesday or Thursday, when another Pacific storm system appears likely to hit Southern California.

At Snow Valley, the first snow of 2000 lured a fairly sparse crowd, probably because chains were required on the road leading to the resort early in the day and many people were, let’s face it, in no condition to slap fiberglass on their feet and slide down anything more challenging than a BarcaLounger.

Among the intrepid were Stan and Isabella Ojeda, a father and daughter from Oceanside who hit the slopes first thing Saturday morning after staying up until midnight and 10:30 p.m., respectively, the night before.

It was the first time skiing for Isabella, 4, who swooped down the slopes in a cornflower blue snowsuit, tucked safely between her father’s legs. She said she felt “like a race car”--a term that somewhat startled her father, who apparently felt like something less than a Formula One vehicle himself.

Also on the slopes for the first time was Aeja Kim, a hotel manager and student who lives in L.A.’s Koreatown and was with a church group, sliding slowly and uncertainly down the mountain. She was learning to ski.

At least, that’s what her teacher said. “I’m teaching a class here!” he growled at a passerby who stopped to chat with his students. Kim seemed somewhat less certain. As one leg headed toward San Diego and the other toward Barstow, and as her grip tightened on a friend’s ski pole, threatening to send her friend toward Catalina, she smiled uncertainly.

“It’s not skiing!” she said, planting her other hand in the snow between her legs.

She had a point. It’s a new century, it deserves a new vocabulary. Call it falling with grace.