The opening day froth is real. Photo: Instagram
The past three-and-a-half months have moved at a snail’s pace for Orange County’s Cori Frothstein. Finally, though, Opening Day 2019 has arrived. The Southern Californian took her last run of the 2018/2019 season at the same Sierra Nevada resort in late May and now, she’s ready to kick off the 2019/2020 season.
There’s just one problem. In all the excitement of foregoing Coachella and EDC Las Vegas back in the spring so she could instead buy this year’s season pass, now racing into the Sierras just weeks after Labor Day, there’s no snow. But officials at one particular resort in the Sierras don’t care. They opened the lifts anyway, just to be first. Because, they say, that race is always won by Colorado resorts and, damn it, they’re sick of it. Frothstein is just one of many enthusiasts who made the trek from San Diego, Orange County, and Los Angeles for this early-October opening day without checking the cams.
It’s a phenomenon years in the making: resorts across the region race to be the first to fire up the lifts, attracting stoked snowboarders and skiers in droves who genuinely can’t wait to tally as many days on the hill as possible. And the race has become so competitive in recent years (with so many consecutive loosing seasons for California resorts) that most mountains are plain sick of it. The group of Southern California pass holders like Frothstein who showed up today are not happy, sweating it out in full winter gear before de-robing down to the tank tops and beanies they’re accustomed to during Los Angeles’ fall weather, sipping pumpkin spice lattes in bitter disenchantment.
“It’s f***ing global warming, man,” proclaims Frothstein, without taking into account the resort’s desperate need to be first.
Of course, global warming likely isn’t to blame, even though Frothstein has now hammered out a 1,500-word essay on her Facebook wall about how climate change has clearly delayed her winter plans. It’s actually never once snowed this early here. But the fact that she is downing her usual grande pumpkin spice latte and diving into a bitter diatribe about how “this is all Trump’s fault” instead of “shredding the park” is no coincidence. As it turns out, the resort’s opening this weekend was also intentionally planned around the official kick off of pumpkin spice season.
“Southern Californians have a thing for pumpkin spice lattes, indeed,” says one resort executive who wished to remain anonymous. “Because it’s a region that has no real change of seasons and honestly, literally no perception of weather whatsoever, individuals in places like Los Angeles take the seasonal availability of the popular drink as their marker that it’s time to bundle up and put on their beanies and buy new down jackets. Their winter froth jumps through the ceiling and voila, they all show up at our gates. Pretty smart, eh?”
As for the issue at hand, as stated the mid-60s, sunny opening day didn’t detract the resort from firing up its chairlifts. There’s absolutely no snow in the foreseeable forecast and temps are high enough that the manmade frost pumped out by machines melts within seconds of hitting the ground. Many visitors still obliged by taking their first runs of the season on the now-bare grass. Meanwhile, there were others who chose to look at the glass half full, making the most of the day by celebrating the soon-to-be new season in the lodge.
“If I’m being honest, this is where I spend like 97 percent of my time when it’s actually snowing anyway,” says Cori’s friend and official “day trip partner,” Jim. “Cori’s one of those ‘gotta get first tracks’ people who will literally try to get like 8,000 runs in a day. It’s insufferable and by 9 a.m. I’m usually in the lodge drinking and padding my Instagram story. Plus, they started serving White Claw here this year, so basically, I’m just doing exactly what I would do on a Saturday back home in Hermosa Beach…”
Editor’s Note: Johnny Utah is an “Eff-Bee-Eye” agent and an expert in works of satire. More of his investigative work can be found here. In all seriousness, Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin opened Friday. So damn it, Colorado won again.
