Before this year’s winter break, students from Cathedral Catholic were filled with excitement and anticipation to be able to go to the popular slopes and escape the warm San Diego winter. With the most popular ski spot among the Cathedral population being Big Bear, there was extreme disappointment among the students when Big Bear’s average snowfall per week was only 2 inches in December.
Although Big Bear does provide man-made snow on their slopes for the skiers and snowboarders to enjoy despite the unusual weather, it was just not the same for tourists. The usual winter wonderland scenes have been replaced by bare and dry landscapes. This ruins the whole point of going up to places like Big Bear hoping to fulfill their wishes of spending Christmas in snow.
Cathedral senior Mallory Axline spent a couple of days in Big Bear over break and shared her thoughts on the weather, “I went up to Big Bear hoping to see snow and ski, but there was no to very little snow, and the snow that was there was slushy like. Even some of the lifts were shut down. I still skied, but it was not the same as it was in the past years.”
The disappointment in the snow is not just within the Cathedral community, but many social media platforms have become spaces for expressing disappointment and sharing stories of their unmet expectations. The collective disappointment reflects a shared sense of letdown as students realize that the reality of a white winter has not lived up to their hopes.
Another big and very popular activity to do up in Big Bear is to sled. Many students find joy in taking a sled up a hill covered with powder snow and sledding down it. Another CCHS student, Vanesa Perez also went to Big Bear in the hopes of sledding with her family. “When we got up to the mountain, we were desperately looking for a hill with snow to sled down, but we ended up finding none since there was such little snow. We ended up leaving shortly after since the whole reason we went up to Big Bear was to sled.”
With the lack of snowfall this year, it strikes up a big concern on global warming issues, which has been a huge topic over the past couple of years. If Big Bear and other popular winter break places start getting warmer and do not produce enough snow, people are going to have to start finding other places to go during their winter break. Although the lack of snowfall disappointed a lot of people, many are still looking forward to and are hopeful for a greater amount of snow next year.
