El Nino is making a lot of friends among winter sports enthusiasts hungry for snow after four straight years of bone-dry winters.
Responding to early snowfall and only two days notice, skiers and boarders took advantage Thursday of Mammoth Mountain's earliest opening since before the drought began.
"I can't remember an opening day this good," said snowboarder Scott Blum.
Mammoth had been planning to open next week, but decided the fresh snow merited the effort to move up the date, said Rusty Gregory, Mammoth Mountain CEO.
For the new opening day, Mammoth was able to get chairs 1 (Broadway), 3 (Face Lift) and beginner chair 11 running.
Two other mountain resorts, Mountain High near Wrightwood and Boreal near Lake Tahoe, planned to open Friday. Mammoth intends to open the gondola that services the bowl runs from the summit.
The storm earlier in the week brought Mammoth a foot of snow at the base lodge, and some two and a half feet at the summit. Boreal and Mountain High did not get as much, but took advantage of the colder weather to intensify snow-making.
"The cold weather helped tremendously," said Patrick Pierce, a Mountain High spokesman. "We were able to make a lot of headway making a lot of snow."
In Southern California, the El Nino weather pattern is associated with wetter winters than normal, though how much of a factor it played in this particular storm is something meteorologists cannot quantify.
Mountain veterans do see evidence of a turning point in the pattern of the last four years.
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"I know what if feels like when it changes. And ... it's changed," said Gregory.
One hardcore boarder hungry for snow camped overnight in a tent next to Mammoth's Broadway chairlift in his bid to be first onto the mountain.
"It's something I've always wanted to do," said Frank Knab. His reward was having the run to himself on freshly groomed, untracked snow.
"There's nothing better than a fresh groomer," Knab said.
With only a fraction of the mountain open on the first day, the price of lift tickets was discounted to $50. As it was, many who came out were season pass holders, including Peter Schwartzkopf and his wife Michelle, delighted their scheduled days off from work enabled them to make opening day.
"We got a few runs in. Now we can go home and come back tomorrow," Schwartzkopf said.
For its opening weekend, Mountain High is pricing lift tickets at $25.
