SKIING : No Mistaking Sights of the Season

The signs are unmistakable:

--Snow has fallen at the higher elevations of the Sierra, the Cascades, the Wasatch Range and the Rocky Mountains.

--Warren Miller is popping up all over the Southland with his 40th annual feature film, “White Magic.”

--Both Ski and Skiing magazines have published four monthly issues, although it’s not even winter yet.

--And Ski Dazzle, the 26th edition of the Los Angeles Ski Show, will open a four-day run at the L.A. Convention Center today.

What all this means is that skiing season has arrived. Actually, skiers have been slipping and sliding--and dodging tree stumps--at Mammoth Mountain and a couple of other places since the last weekend in October.

Mammoth remains in daily operation, reporting a two-foot base, as does Boreal in Northern California. However, Kirkwood decided to close Wednesday, pending the arrival of another storm. Squaw Valley was also open briefly but now needs more snow.

Six resorts in Colorado--Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Keystone, Loveland, Vail and Winter Park--are operating at limited capacity as the result of intensive snow making, combined with a fresh snowfall that was continuing Wednesday, and the state’s other major destinations hope to get under way Thanksgiving weekend.

Brighton is the only Utah ski area running its lifts--a recent warm spell cut into several planned early openings--but Alta, Brian Head, Park City, Solitude, Snowbird, Snowbasin and Deer Valley are still pointing toward next Wednesday or Thursday.

Skiing Notes

Updated ski conditions in Utah may be obtained by calling (801) 521-8102. For Colorado, it’s (303) 831-7669. . . . Mammoth Mountain was operating Chairlifts 1 and 11 Wednesday, with its all-day ticket reduced to $25. . . . Killington, Vt., has been open since Oct. 10. . . . Snow Valley’s base facilities have been expanded and rebuilt since a fire last July 27 that caused about $2 million in damages.

Warren Miller’s “White Magic” includes sequences of heli-skiing in the Cariboos, paragliding over the Austrian Alps, helicopter-snowboarding on New Zealand’s glaciers, the “Dummy Downhill” at Thunder Bay, a sumo wrestler warming up for a run on Appi Mountain in Japan and powder skiing with Pam Fletcher, former U.S. downhill racing star. Screenings are scheduled tonight at Redondo Beach High School; Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, and next Wednesday night at the La Mirada Civic Theater--all starting at 7:30.

Ski Dazzle offers the customary potpourri of everything one needs to prepare for a long, cold winter--ski equipment exhibits, travel information, films, demonstrations, fashion shows and swap, plus Steve Kanaly’s celebrity auction to benefit the March of Dimes at 8 p.m. Saturday. Show hours are 4 to 11 p.m. today and Friday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday.

The three finalists for this season’s AT&T; skiing award, given annually to “an individual whose commitment to excellence and dedication to skiing has profoundly enriched the sport,” are all former racing champions--Stein Eriksen of Deer Valley, Utah; Andrea Mead Lawrence of Mammoth Lakes, and Cindy Nelson of Vail, Colo. The winner will be announced during the World Cup women’s races Dec. 9-10 at Steamboat Springs, Colo.