Advice: Stealing a day (or two) in LA area, around New Year

O

ondeadlin

New member
I'm going to be in LA over the New Year for business and have a chance to get free any time after 11 a.m. on Dec. 31st, and for most of Jan. 2, before I catch a redeye home.

Want to get some turns in on at least one of the days, preferably two. No experience with SoCal skiing, not expecting anything epic, just a new experience.

Any and all advice appreciated.
 
Your odds of natural snow are not good, and this was a very warm November so snowmaking is just getting started. The first White Ribbons of Death at Big Bear and Mt. High opened yesterday.

The Big Bear areas usually have 1/2 to 3/4 of their combined 400 acres open on snowmaking by New Years. Coming from Michigan this may look good to you as they do have 1200+ vertical. The bad news is that with clean roads and no traffic it's a 2 hour drive one way to Big Bear. If you ski all day Jan. 2 you should get off the hill at least 4 hours before a flight out of LAX. Ontario Airport is at least an hour closer to Big Bear.

Mt. High is 30-45 minutes closer. It has more interesting terrain with natural snow than Big Bear, but less water capacity for snowmaking. It is likely to have 2 congested WROD's of 1000 vertical plus a few shorter trails covered.

It's not clear from your post if you have Jan. 1 free (is this a Rose Bowl trip?) but traffic and logistics will be best then. Dec. 31 you won't be on the hill before 1PM; doesn't seem worth it, especially if you have to drive back down the same day.

You need to check reports shortly before your trip. You could get lucky and have real skiing at Mt. Baldy. The odds of that are about 15%.
 
If you decide a few days before, you might want to "reserve" your ticket online at Mt. High or Big Bear.. as they both limit ticket sales when its busy, which it will be over the holidays. I believe they are both doing reservations this year, but might want to double check. as Tony mentioned, BB is bigger and will likely have more terrain open.. but thats also 2 hours each way.. Mt. High is alot closer, but likely less terrain and .. well, its like a big skatepark.
 
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