SKIING / CHRIS DUFRESNE : Mountain for Snowboarders Attracts Two

Welcome to Ski Green Valley.

Please observe the rules of the mountain and be courteous toward others.

Have an enjoyable day.

And remember: No skiing allowed.

Maybe it was a hare-brained idea. Maybe it was years ahead of its time. Maybe it’s still too early to call.

But the area’s first snowboarders-only park opened this week with a resounding thud.

Ski Green Valley, a tiny resort trying to survive in Big Bear against the big three, took a business bungee jump when it decided to close its mountain to skiers Mondays through Fridays.

Here’s hoping Friday is better than Monday.

Monday, the first day of the six-to-eight week pilot operation, two snowboarders showed up.

Two.

As the shredders say: Gnarly.

Tuesday, business nearly doubled when three people hit the slopes. Unfortunately, one of them had a free pass.

After two days, employees still outnumbered total customers, six to five.

But that hasn’t stopped them yet up at Green Valley.

Because the resort’s shuttle bus is broken, any snowboarder with a four-wheel-drive vehicle can earn a free lunch by delivering customers from the parking lot to the chair lift.

At this point, a snowboarder on a tricycle would be nice.

“Our ticket man has a lot of time on his hands,” Eric Schwartz, marketing director at Ski Green Valley, said.

A snowboard park seemed like a good idea. Maybe it still is.

On paper, Schwartz’s brainstorm has merit.

“It’s so hard competing in this market,” he says. “The only way not to become a dinosaur was to turn into snowboard park. I don’t want to see it die before it has a chance to take off.”

Schwartz has his finger on the pulse of the market. The battle for space on the local mountains between snowboarders and skiers is real.

Skiers are traditionalists. They like their runs groomed and their peers well mannered.

Snowboarders tend to be younger and more exuberant. They like rougher rides on bumpy terrain.

The two sports are apples and oranges. Imagine having to share your tennis court with a racquetball player.

Schwartz had the novel idea of giving snowboarders’ their own mountain. At Ski Green Valley--it will officially become Big Air Green Valley as soon as they blot the word Ski off the promotional billboard on Highway 18--snowboarders can groom their own runs with shovels provided by the resort.

Snowboarders also can walk alongside the snow-grooming tractor and tell Dennis Whittington, the mountain’s snow groomer, just how to shape the course.

If it wasn’t an insurance problem, snowboarders could ride with Dennis in the groomer.

“We will push the snow to do what you want,” Schwartz said.

The lift tickets are cheaper than other resorts, $24 for adults and $20 for children 12 and younger.

But if a few people don’t show up soon, Green Valley will become Death Valley.

Schwartz says he needs 50 paying snowboarders a day to break even. The pilot program was supposed to last eight weeks, but Schwartz doesn’t figure to last that long at his current rate of 2 1/2 customers a day.

And although he has no money to advertise, Schwartz isn’t giving up.

“I kind of feel like Walt Disney or Alfred E. Newman,” he says. “When Disney started out, no one believed in him. We’re getting good reviews. We made it in the Japanese issue of their Wall Street Journal. We’ve made it internationally. I have a feeling it’s going to build.”

Schwartz is relying on word of mouth to drum up interest.

He needs more words and more mouths.

“We have three weeks locked in,” he says. “How long can I hang in? Probably until tomorrow noon. No, there will be at least three weeks. If we can build it up within a week or two, if we can get 50 people a day, then I’ll continue as long as possible.”

On an venture like this, optimism helps.

Says Schwartz, “We’ve gone from being the state’s smallest ski area to the country’s largest snowboard park.”

Skiing Notes

The World Alpine Ski Championships begin today at the Shizukuishi Ski Resort in Japan with the women’s combined downhill. The United States has four entrants in the race: Krista Schmidinger, Pacabo Street, Megan Gerety and Julie Parisien.

The U.S. downhill squad got off to a good start in the championships as five Americans cracked the top 15 in Tuesday’s training run. Tommy Moe finished only two-hundredths of a second behind the day’s leader, Luc Alphand of France. AJ Kitt, the top U.S. downhiller, finished ninth. The downhill race is scheduled for Sunday. Training runs are not ordinarily a great indicator of success in the race, but any news is good news for the beleaguered U.S. team.

Erik Schlopy, of Park City, remains hospitalized in Morioka, Japan, with a back injury suffered when he crashed in a downhill training run. Schlopy suffered several compressed vertebrae and a broken breastbone in the crash but doctors are optimistic there will be no paralysis. No decision has been made on when Schlopy will be brought back to the United States. . . . ABC-TV will show the World Championships Feb. 6 and 7, and Feb. 13 and 14.

Mt. Baldy is conducting a ski camp every Friday through March 26. The price is $55 a session, which includes a lift ticket, and will feature instruction from former members of the U.S. ski team. Details: (714) 982-5813. . . . Stu Campbell is conducting two seminars at Heavenly Lake Tahoe, the first Feb. 9-11 and another March 8-12. Campbell, a longtime instructional editor of Ski magazine and vice president of skier services at Heavenly, has been a ski teacher for 30 years. Details: 800-2-HEAVEN and ask about the performance skiing seminars. . . . Northstar-at-Tahoe is offering a three-day clinic Feb. 8-10 for intermediates or better. Details: (916) 562-2471.