A snowy – and welcome – scene this morning at Mammoth Mountain’s Canyon Lodge. (Mammoth Mountain Ski Area photo)

By Jerry Rice

#MammothSnowDance appears to be working.

After a seemingly never-ending string of sunny days this winter, employees and guests at Mammoth Mountain started performing their best “make it snow” moves for a YouTube video that was posted a couple days ago. The gambit apparently worked because the resort has received more than 8 inches of new snowfall in the past 24 hours.

By any measure, this has been a rough winter for ski and snowboard resorts throughout California. Whether it’s Heavenly and Squaw Valley in the Lake Tahoe area, or Bear Mountain and Mountain High in the Southland, the lack of snowfall has presented an unwelcome challenge. Mammoth Mountain’s Main Lodge, for example, has a season total of 54 inches – considerably short of the 250 inches of snow received by this time last year.

So resorts with snow-making capabilities have been putting those tools to work whenever possible. At Mammoth, which has an extensive snow-making system, the base depth this morning was 15-25 inches and 16 lifts were scheduled to run today offering access to 52 trails.

But there’s nothing like the natural stuff.

“Keep the snow dances coming – Mother Nature is listening,” says Mammoth spokeswoman Lauren Burke. “The snow is still falling at about an inch an hour, and is not expected to stop anytime soon.”

Want some inspiration before choreographing your own #MammothSnowDance? Here’s the video. >>>