Snow Summit: Kicking Off the Cali Season Bro-Brah!
(November 1, 1996)

The line was long: most took about 25 minutes. But the crowd was seemed happy to be back on snow with their snowboarding brothers and sisters. Summit only sold about 150 tickets to skiers. The rest were grabbed up by So Cal's finest.

Snow Summit, at Southern California's Big Bear Lake became the first California resort to open for the new fall season on November 1, 1996.

Snowmakers began blowing the man-made stuff on Friday October 25, according to Genevieve Paquet, Snow Summit's public relations person. "We had some unseasonably consistent cold temperatures with the Santa Ana winds and that allowed us to make snow for 115 hours around the clock a for four days," she said.

Summit also received four to six inches of natural snow meaning that this was the resorts earliest opening with natural and man-made snow and the second earliest opening in 44 years.

Word of the opening spread quickly throughout Southern California. By 8:00 AM the upper parking lot was completely full and by 8:30 AM Snow Summit closed the ticket windows and won't let anyone else up on the hill.

This came as pretty bad new to hundreds of snowboarders who had driven up to be a part of opening day festivities. As we arrived people we flowing slowly back out to their cars and packing up.

Christine Waldnan and friend Jeff Manchester were two of those who got turned away after driving up from the city. "It is totally lame," Waldnan said. "We don't know what we're going to do."

"We're thinking about staying up here today so we can ride tomorrow," Manchester said.

Snow Summit cut off lift ticket sales at 1000 people according to Chris Gunnarson, Snow Summit's snowboard director. "We limited sales to 1000, but there were a lot of media and industry people here so there were a lot more people out there."

Snowboarder Magazine's Kayte Peck, Ride Snowboards' Kaipo Guerrero, and the Snowboarder Magazine Crew posing up a storm in line at Snow Summit's Miracle Mile lift.

The lift cue on the Miracle Mile lift was pretty crowded all day, however, no one seemed upset about it. "Hey, it's the first day of the season. This is purely social," said Kayte Peck, advertising director of Snowboarder Magazine. "It's just good to be back on snow with your friends."

By the look of those in line, it's going to be a big year for snowboarding. Of the tickets sold on opening day an estimated 85 percent went to snowboarders. "You had to look pretty hard to find a skier," said Tim Swart, a footwear consultant from Cardiff, California.

With this photo we're pretending to be any local newspaper who is all excited because they have a picture of a snowboarder in the air. Yee haw. Look at that rad shredder catching big air. Gnarly, huh?

The snow coverage was great for those lucky enough to buy a ticket and get out on the snow. The mountain built seven jumps including two gap jumps near the bottom of the Miracle Mile. The early season huckers were definitely in the house, flipping and flopping recklessly down the slope. At least one shoving match erupted when one snowboarder cut another off right before a jump, but hey, it's wouldn't be Southern California snowboarding with out a little attitude be handed out.

Snow Summit will remain open for the rest of the season and hopes to have more terrain covered as soon as possible.

Lines, air, smiling faces...just click here.