Sure, Pomona College soaks in Southern California sunshine through most of the year. But that doesn’t mean students can’t play in the snow.

The Los Angeles Basin and Claremont in particular are set against a backdrop of sharply-rising mountains that get covered in snow during winter storms. So we can drive to the snow for skiing or play and return to our warmer roosts the very same day.

It's not often you can play in the snow in tank tops, shorts and flip-flops.

Early on, Pomona started a “Snow Day” tradition of heading up to the mountains for frosty fun at winter’s first snowfall. Then one warm winter, “Beach Day” replaced Snow Day. At some point these two rituals merged into the popular tradition of Ski-Beach Day, where students hit the slopes and the coast in a single day.

A separate Snow Day still lives on, though in much more convenient form. Nowadays, students don’t have to bother driving into the mountains. We bring the snow to campus.

A student uses his pitching skills to lob a snowball.

OK, it’s not exactly “snow.” Organizers used to bring the real thing down from the mountains until they discovered it was more effective to purchase 15 tons of block ice, which is crushed up in something akin to a wood chipper. Then it is spread out on Marston Quad, where snowball fights quickly erupt.

Students from colder climes might have realized it wasn’t real snow. But nobody was complaining on Snow Day 2004, which fell on a perfect, sunny, 70-degree December day. Some students donned gloves and hats; others wore shorts and flip-flips. A couple guys showed up shirtless, which was probably a bad idea in a snowball fight.

Maybe we Californians aren’t the experts in snow, but we have realized one thing: It’s more fun to play in the stuff when you know you won’t be shoveling it off your porch the next morning.