Liz was in NYC when I was at Mammoth in December, so this was her first day of the 2014-15 season. SoCal had a modest storm of a foot or so Dec. 30, but it was very cold and the next few days of nonstop snowmaking brought the Big Bear areas to full operation of lifts and 80+% of runs.
We waited until after the holiday weekend to check it out. The drive up was a breeze, about 20 minutes faster than usual and Summit's parking lot was about 2/3 full when we got there. With my Mammoth MVP I checked into their office, filled out a waiver and was issued a Big Bear season pass, good for direct-to-lift the rest of this year + 20% food discount. Liz' walk-up ticket was $64, fairly reasonable in today's context.
It's been in the 80's in L.A. for a couple of days and Big Bear's temperature range was 57/24. They are grooming intensely every night and probably making a little snow for maintenance. Further runs are unlikely to open until it's gets cold again or snows some more. Morning surfaces were firm (we were on the hill at 9:05AM), but nothing I would call frozen granular. Last year chairs 6 and 10 never opened so we spent much of our time there today. Here's Liz dropping into the steeper lower section of Olympic with Big Bear Lake in the background.
Here's the Wall.
Snow on these runs was quite good, as they were built only a week ago, well after the 4 days of rain in early December and have seen less skier traffic.
We then moved to the nicely pitched cruisers on Chair 10.
Only in SoCal can you ski comfortably like this on January 7.
By 10:30 or so more people showed up, filling the base parking lots at both mountains. Summit's only congestion was in the usual places like Summit Run near the 2 mid-mountain chairs. We had BBQ lunch at View Haus at the top of Summit at noon, then caught the 12:30 shuttle to Bear Mt.
Bear's Mountain Express had a 5 minute or so lift line, and there was moderate congestion on the Park Run. Liz had never seen such a park-intensive area, and found some of the features quite interesting, though with no desire to try them out.
From Goldmine Peak there was a good view of San Gorgonio, 3,000 feet higher.
There may be a decent snowpack up there from the big early December storm that was all rain at the SoCal ski areas.
We skied a couple runs on Silver, then moved to Bear Peak. Liz on Geronimo.
The last pitch of Geronimo overlooking Big Bear Lake.
This has also only been open a week, so snow was quite good, like Wall and Olympic. Despite the warm temps, the sun is low angle and only the flattest areas got slushy in the afternoon.
Here's a view of the top of Bear Peak with the extensive Bow Canyon sidecountry at left, not even close to adequate coverage in there yet.
It's interesting terrain, but I've only skied it in 1993 and 2009.
I skied 12,700 at Summit and 10,700 at Bear. Liz skied about 11K at Summit and 7K at Bear. She took a couple of breaks due to ongoing boot issues that will need to be addressed early in our upcoming road trip.
We waited until after the holiday weekend to check it out. The drive up was a breeze, about 20 minutes faster than usual and Summit's parking lot was about 2/3 full when we got there. With my Mammoth MVP I checked into their office, filled out a waiver and was issued a Big Bear season pass, good for direct-to-lift the rest of this year + 20% food discount. Liz' walk-up ticket was $64, fairly reasonable in today's context.
It's been in the 80's in L.A. for a couple of days and Big Bear's temperature range was 57/24. They are grooming intensely every night and probably making a little snow for maintenance. Further runs are unlikely to open until it's gets cold again or snows some more. Morning surfaces were firm (we were on the hill at 9:05AM), but nothing I would call frozen granular. Last year chairs 6 and 10 never opened so we spent much of our time there today. Here's Liz dropping into the steeper lower section of Olympic with Big Bear Lake in the background.
Here's the Wall.
Snow on these runs was quite good, as they were built only a week ago, well after the 4 days of rain in early December and have seen less skier traffic.
We then moved to the nicely pitched cruisers on Chair 10.
Only in SoCal can you ski comfortably like this on January 7.
By 10:30 or so more people showed up, filling the base parking lots at both mountains. Summit's only congestion was in the usual places like Summit Run near the 2 mid-mountain chairs. We had BBQ lunch at View Haus at the top of Summit at noon, then caught the 12:30 shuttle to Bear Mt.
Bear's Mountain Express had a 5 minute or so lift line, and there was moderate congestion on the Park Run. Liz had never seen such a park-intensive area, and found some of the features quite interesting, though with no desire to try them out.
From Goldmine Peak there was a good view of San Gorgonio, 3,000 feet higher.
There may be a decent snowpack up there from the big early December storm that was all rain at the SoCal ski areas.
We skied a couple runs on Silver, then moved to Bear Peak. Liz on Geronimo.
The last pitch of Geronimo overlooking Big Bear Lake.
This has also only been open a week, so snow was quite good, like Wall and Olympic. Despite the warm temps, the sun is low angle and only the flattest areas got slushy in the afternoon.
Here's a view of the top of Bear Peak with the extensive Bow Canyon sidecountry at left, not even close to adequate coverage in there yet.
It's interesting terrain, but I've only skied it in 1993 and 2009.
I skied 12,700 at Summit and 10,700 at Bear. Liz skied about 11K at Summit and 7K at Bear. She took a couple of breaks due to ongoing boot issues that will need to be addressed early in our upcoming road trip.
