What to Know
- Annual contest asks participants to guess when the first inch will accumulate at Mountain Station
- Jan. 9 was the day
- The famous desert attraction is open daily, snow or not
Dedicated snow-guessers, as a general rule, employ many different techniques for predicting when the white stuff will fall, and accumulate, from whizzbang meteorological devices to licking a fingertip and holding it up to the wind.
And, quite often, and understandably, recent winters are considered when reviewing all of the available data.
And some of the people who submitted their predictions to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway during the attraction's annual Snow-Guessing Contest may have glanced back at last year, only to wonder if this season would be as remarkably snowy at Mt. San Jacinto.
Well... no. In a word. One very, very short word.
Things were rather dry at the end of 2017, and waiting on that accumulated inch of snow at Mountain Station, the tram's upper-elevation terminus point, turned into more waiting, and more waiting, and a little more waiting beyond that.
But the snow arrived, and the wait has ended, and Tuesday, Jan. 9 was the winning day (at 6:35 in the morning, to be exact). The first ten people to pick Jan. 9 will receive a quartet of admissions to the up, up, up-the-mountain destination.
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A lot of snow-guessers went for it this round, with some 845 entries making their way to the tram since the contest's start date of Oct. 1, 2017.
Which brings us to next year, as in the winter of 2018-2019, and to the next Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Snow-Guessing Contest. The first of October is always when the contest opens, so best circle that date now, on the calendar, if your snow senses are sharp and you want to try for the prize.
And, hey, if you look back at this winter, to try and fashion a perfect prediction, you may remember it was on the drier, warmer side to start.
But will next year be, too?
That's the thing with winter: It always has a few surprises up its fleece-lined sleeves. So best hold a fingertip to the wind, and consult your hunches, and jump into next year's Snow-Guessing Contest with confident aplomb.
