Storm Packs a Pow(d)erful Punch

It wasn’t the most brilliant observation, but it was accurate and to the point: “It looks like a completely different world than it did a week ago.”

Mountain High spokesman John McColly said it Tuesday, after a quick-hitting storm had left six to eight inches of snow on the slopes and plopped a fluffy, white blanket--the first of the season--on the nearby town of Wrightwood.

Today, the transformation is much more complete, not only in and around Wrightwood, which is basically buried, but throughout the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains, where storms late Wednesday and Thursday literally inundated elevations above 4,000 feet.

“It’s just unbelievable. We haven’t had this kind of powder in quite a while . . . since El Nino,” Genevieve Gunnarson, spokeswoman for Snow Summit in Big Bear Lake, said Thursday morning. “We got 18 to 20 inches and it’s still dumping.”

By midday, the snow total in the Big Bear area had risen to more than two feet at base levels and to more than three feet on the upper runs.

And Big Bear wasn’t hit nearly as hard as a few other areas.

Asked how deep the powder was at Mt. Baldy, spokesman John Koulouris used the ski operations manager as a measuring stick and said, “It’s over Nick’s head.”

The town of Mt. Baldy, at 4,000 feet, received two feet of snow. By noon, the resort parking lot had more than 30 inches; Thunder Mountain had five feet of deep powder, with more coming down.

This will enable Baldy to open, probably today, for the first time this season, with some of the best conditions in the Southland. Avalanche concerns, however, will keep some of the expert runs off limits for a day or two.

Indeed, the season’s first significant blast, the most powerful since El Nino of 1998, will enable full or nearly full operations this holiday weekend at the Big Four: Mountain High, Snow Summit, Big Bear Mountain and Snow Valley. It will also enable smaller ski areas such as Mt. Waterman and Ski Sunrise to avoid total financial disaster and open, within the next week, for the first time this season.

Because of the whopping snowfall, road crews will have their hands full this weekend and skiers and snowboarders are strongly advised to check conditions before traveling by calling Caltrans at (800) 427-7623.

A MONTH TO REMEMBER

A year ago, Mammoth Mountain Ski Area was getting 10 feet of snow in a 10-day period. By midmorning Thursday, the storm total was more than three feet and rising.

“That’s been our typical pattern the last couple of years--just wait until January because that’s when we’ve been getting all our snow,” said Karen McGillis, resort spokeswoman.

This week’s storms--Mammoth got six inches Monday--couldn’t have been more timely, since the resort had been relying almost strictly on machine-blown snow for weeks, and operating on an increasingly limited basis.

“We’re still sort of on hold,” McGillis added, “because it’s still snowing and windy, and because of avalanche reasons.”

Mammoth, however, expects to be fully open in the next day or two.

Farther up U.S. 395, at June Mountain Ski Area, the season will begin Saturday, thanks to four feet of fresh powder.

“We called in all the troops, told them all leaves are canceled and to come dressed in their blues, clean and silver,” said Paul McMahon, assistant general manager. “We needed about two feet to open and we got four. It’s either feast or famine up here.”

McMahon said it will take another storm or two to open the expert face runs, but that about 90% of the mountain should be open by Saturday.

Across the range in the Lake Tahoe area, a similar scenario was unfolding Thursday and most, if not all of the resorts, will be operating at or near 100% this weekend.

ON TAP

* The Red Bull Ultra-Cross, involving skier-snowboarder teams competing for a $30,000 purse in a relay-style race on a steep motocross-style course, will be held at Squaw Valley USA in the Lake Tahoe area next Friday and Saturday. Competition is open and team entry is $200. Details: (530) 583-4638.

* The ESPN Winter X Games are scheduled Feb. 1-4 at Mount Snow in Vermont and will be telecast by ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC Feb. 2-6. Among top Southland performers will be Aleisha Cline of Santa Barbara (skiing); Tommy Clowers of La Mesa (motocross), Tina Dixon of San Clemente (snowboarding) and Shaun White of San Diego (snowboarding). The X Games’ official site is https://expn.com.

* The Vans Triple Crown of Snowboarding arrives at Snow Summit Feb. 14-18. The 2001 Vans Championships, the second leg of a three-stop series, includes competition in half pipe, snowboard-cross and big-air. The athlete to watch is White. Though only 14, he stole the show in the half-pipe event at Breckenridge, Colo., leading through two rounds in the final before being edged by noted pro Todd Richards of Encinitas.

FRESHWATER NEWS

* East Walker woes: The once-embattled East Walker River is embattled again. Crews are busy trying to remove 3,600 gallons of fuel oil that spilled into the popular Eastern Sierra trout fishery when a tanker truck skidded off Highway 182 on Dec. 30. The crash killed the truck driver and released the oil into a 10-mile stretch of river below Bridgeport Reservoir.

As of Tuesday, about 1,000 gallons of oil had been recovered within the area of containment. Only one oiled bird, two oiled beavers and 13 dead fish had been collected, but the long-term impact may prove more damaging.

Teams of biologists, as well as cleanup crews, have been hampered by wintry weather. Fortunately, the fuel oil that spilled must be heated to become fully liquid, so the heavy viscosity kept it from spreading through more of the river.

In 1988, high flows and heavy siltation, caused when the Walker River Irrigation District began unimpeded releases from Bridgeport Reservoir, destroyed what was then a blue-ribbon trout fishery. It has been recovering since.

* Lightning and thunder: At Santa Ana River Lakes in Anaheim, and at nearby Corona Lake, this phenomenon has nothing to do with this week’s storms.

Lightning trout, a cross between rainbow trout with recessive genes and regular rainbow trout, made their debut last year. “Now here comes the thunder,” boasts a news release introducing the latest brand of fish, to be stocked in the reservoirs Wednesday.

Whereas lightning trout are brightly colored, thunder trout--a cross between lightning and regular rainbows--are tannish in the water and silvery when removed, with red horizontal stripes.

Both are products of Mt. Lassen Trout Farm in Northern California, where abnormally large and strangely colored fish are grown as specialty items for those willing to pay for them.

Doug Elliott, who runs the SARL and Corona concessions, spends $750,000 on Mt. Lassen-raised fish--including many topping 20 pounds--and hopes the newest addition will help steal some of the competition’s thunder, so to speak.

SALTWATER NEWS

* Billfish boom: Some of our wintry weather reached all the way down the Baja California peninsula to Cabo San Lucas, where an incredible marlin bite appears to have weathered the storm.

“It was really windy and cold [Wednesday], despite being sunny, but only one boat was skunked, as the anglers turned back early,” said Tracy Ehrenberg of the Pisces Fleet. “The others averaged one marlin and one dorado.”

The stripers, corralling schools of mackerel and swilling shrimp, until midweek were being found in great abundance and boats fishing only a mile offshore were posting a ridiculous average of two-six marlin per trip. The Pisces Fleet posted a 100% success rate in a week ending last Friday, its anglers bringing to leader 108 stripers, releasing all but one.

Ehrenberg said that while the bite was down at mid-week, there were no immediate signs of a mass marlin exodus.

* Albacore score: The longfin craze has long subsided but the fish are popping up in sizable schools over a wide area beginning about 120 miles south of the border.

Private yachts running to Guadalupe Island, lures in tow, have been most successful. The yacht Hanapah out of Newport Beach got things started 12 days ago by logging 20 fish--from five up to 30 pounds--in 10 stops on the way to the island. Last weekend, the New Moon out of Avalon reported a similar count.

Long-range party boat captains, meanwhile, are reporting equally unseasonable encounters with another popular tuna--bluefin.

The stormy weather, however, might send these fish back to wherever they came from.

WINDING UP

Talk about a raw deal . . .

A Japanese seafood distributor, admitting being caught up in the moment, bid a whopping $173,200 for a 445-pound bluefin tuna at a Tokyo auction last week, doubling the record price paid for the popular tuna, which is usually served raw in sushi or as sashimi.

At $857.63 per 2.2 pounds, the price tag broke the previous all-time high in 1998 of $385.93 for a tuna.

“I was being stubborn and didn’t want to give in to the other bidders,” the unidentified distributor told TV Tokyo. “I can’t profit from it.”

No, but at that price he might develop a severe case of indigestion.

* SKI REPORT, D14