Telling White Lies to Ski the White Stuff

BIG BEAR LAKE — Don’t tell Mom. Keep the boss in the dark. Because this mountain town is ski-boot-deep in work and school refuseniks, plenty of whom told white lies to get to the white stuff.

From the beach cities and the subdivisions they came, rousing while dawn was still cracking through the dark sky, loading up their cars with skis, snowboards and buddies.

They were the people whizzing the other way on the freeway in the morning commute, cell phones pressed to their ears, faking a cough and calling in sick.

Why get stuck on the mountain with the weekend warriors, they seemed to be asking themselves, those beginner skiers and boarders who get out once a year and crowd the lift lines. Weekdays are for the people who have the mountains bonded to their soul like P-Tex to a ski, the people for whom getting off the job, out of school and on the bumps and the jumps is part of who they are.

“It’s better than going up with the weekend people, the people who just come up once a season,” said John Meyers, a Yorba Linda dentist who canceled all his appointments one day last week to hit the slopes. “It beats going to work. It gets rid of the everyday humdrum. You’re off the beeper. You’re on the mountain.”

With Southland ski areas enjoying the frozen fruits of El Nino, these days are the kind Big Bear people dream about. Snow cover at Snow Summit, the most popular ski area in the town, was between 18 and 36 inches late in the week, compared to about 12 inches last year.

That kept 95% of the trails on this and competing mountains open. Last year, with the weather warm and muggy in December, only about 40% of trails were open at Snow Summit in the weeks before Christmas.

According to the National Weather Service, more snow is expected at Big Bear resorts through today.

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Even so, there are not a lot of people up here on weekdays. That’s the point. So many people jammed the mountain last weekend that resort managers stopped selling tickets midway through Saturday to keep lift lines down to half an hour or so.

Midweek, the mountain draws half as many people--about 3,000 on Thursday. That is, as the snowboarders say, sweet.

“For me, this is a solitude sport. I come up for the inner peace,” said Vaughn Howes, 41, a theater designer from Santa Clarita listening to the swish of the snowboarders beneath his sunny perch on a leisurely chairlift, the lake from which this town takes its name behind him.

“I’m somewhat of a loner. I like to come up on my own, especially on a quiet day, ski up top away from the crowds and just think.”

Loading their boards in their car trunk outside a Costa Mesa ski shop, a pair of 20-year-old best friends from Santa Ana said they didn’t think twice before calling in sick to get up to Big Bear. The two scoop ice cream by day and park cars by night.

“We’re gonna tell them we both came down with colds. We’re gonna rage up there, board, and get down in time to get to our night jobs,” said one.

“We’re dead tired when we get back, and we have to run for cars, our eyes are bloodshot, but it’s worth it, man, it’s worth it.”

The kind of people up here on weekdays wear the number of days they ski a year like badges of honor. Ten brands you as a slacker. Fifty means you take your mountain seriously.

“Dude, I was up here every week last year. I’m serious, I ditched school every chance I got,” said one boarder who asked not to be named so his mother wouldn’t learn his secret.

“It’s like, otherwise I get depressed.”

Many of the adults stomping their boots, snapping into their bindings and pushing off down trails with names such as Off the Wall and Miracle Mile said they have left behind their days of cutting out to ski. Sort of. Instead of lying to their bosses or their customers, they figure out how to ski and still keep the money coming in to pay the lift tickets ($32 a pop at Snow Summit).

“As I drive up the freeway, I just see everybody going to work, traffic at a dead stop going the other way, and it just gives me a feeling of, not superiority, but well-being, that I can do this,” said Bob Kostka, 59, who owns a restaurant in La Habra.

His secret? He skis with his wife one morning a week during the season. He said they’re home by 2 p.m., in time to serve his clientele dinner.

“It takes you back to school days, when you played hooky from school,” said David Fieg, 26, a dentistry resident from Yorba Linda. “You get off work and you know all your colleagues are back there sweating it out.”

Craig Delahooke, 31, did them all one better. A salesman for a San Clemente company that makes irrigation equipment, he brought his work along with him--in the form of a client, Alex Willis, 41.

Approached at the bottom of a chairlift, the two snowboarders were deep in discussion about investments and something else incomprehensibly technical.

“We’re conducting business--I’m serious,” Delahooke said. “This is my job.”

Right. And this reporter was working hard too.