I figured New Year's Day would be the best shot at manageable crowds/traffic to ski at Big Bear. I also thought it might be worth the trip with possibly less rain Christmas week to mess up surfaces.
The early traffic was minimal as I suspected, but arriving at 8:10AM still wasn't early enough to get on-site parking at Summit. I had forgotten about the people who stay in Big Bear for the holiday, and the town was full of those with the unusual amount of early season snow. I was somewhat correct as Snow Summit did not sell out 12/31 or 1/1 even though it did 12/27-30.
Snow Summit was in its usual meticulously groomed status, but with all runs open rather than the typical 2/3 to 3/4 when I'm there in early season, thanks again to the 4 feet of snow in December. It was all packed powder with a somewhat firm subsurface, but nothing I would call frozen granular. So I suspected there may not have been much rain, though one of the locals said it rained in town by the lake Christmas Eve. Some of the flat areas, particularly near the lifts, had hardpack that softened during the day, but this is typical SoCal melt/freeze.
Here I am at the top of Snow Summit. Sorry admin, no more red jacket to kick around. :lol: Note eastern end of Big Bear Lake is partly frozen over. I skied the main top to bottom runs first thing, then stuck to chairs 10, 7 and 6 as it got busier. Total 13,500 when I took the shuttle bus to Bear Mt. at 1:30.
No surprise Bear with its awkward layout was a zoo at the base, where the 10 minutes for Access Express was the longest lift line of my day. I skied one run on Geronimo, but my real objective was to see if the off-piste canyons had enough natural snow to ski. I had only been in them in March 1993.
Riding up the Bear Peak lift here's the view of Bow Canyon. There were "ski-at-your-own-risk" warning signs at the top, but it wasn't closed. Coverage was just adequate, not nearly as much as 1993, so it was best to stick to the most obvious and open fall lines.
This was a nice open line, though one can see that everything funnels into the gully at the bottom. The gully goes on a long way and had a few tight spots and lots of blind corners
The good news is that it was all shaded and chalky or packed powder. Clearly it did not rain at all above 7,500 feet or so around Big Bear. But you did have to ski deliberately to avoid obstacles, which were mostly partially buried logs rather than rocks. In 1993 there was spring snow and I remember 8-year-old Adam zipping fast through that gully as we know kids like to do.
Patroller with the view of San Gorgonio from the top of Bear Peak.
The canyons on either side of Bear Peak force you all the way to the bottom, so I rode chair 2 to connect to Silver Mt. Silver has just one good snowmaking cruiser from the top, but there is also a steep natural run with a double fall line Quicksilver (now renamed The Wedge in deference to SoCal surf culture).
View down Quicksilver, soft carvable snow. If the natural base holds up this can be an excellent mogul run. Last run on Silver was into Goldmine Canyon at skier's left. This was shorter but closed in more than Bow. I took a couple of pics but you can't see that much. There's also the more expansive Deer Canyon between Silver Mt. and Bear Peak, but I remember from 1993 that the gully at the bottom of that one is a real marathon and didn't want to commit to that in the lower snowpack.
I finally got in 2 runs on the usually overrun Bear Mt. Express after 4PM.
View NE near sunset over Baldwin Lake before my last run. 8,600 at Bear, 21,900 for the day.
Now I had to deal with the crowds. I caught the 4:45 shuttle back to Summit, then a second shuttle down to auxiliary parking, arriving 5:25. I had dinner in Big Bear, hopefully letting traffic clear, but that was not to be. As I drove west along the south shore of the lake, eastbound traffic coming into town after 7PM was bumper to bumper. Then my direction ground to a crawl just short of the dam. An eastbound driver asked me about his traffic and warned me that westbound was congested all the way down the 330. So I bailed out, driving around the north shore, then out the back way to Redlands, emerging there at 9:20PM, still an hour of freeway from home.
The early traffic was minimal as I suspected, but arriving at 8:10AM still wasn't early enough to get on-site parking at Summit. I had forgotten about the people who stay in Big Bear for the holiday, and the town was full of those with the unusual amount of early season snow. I was somewhat correct as Snow Summit did not sell out 12/31 or 1/1 even though it did 12/27-30.
Snow Summit was in its usual meticulously groomed status, but with all runs open rather than the typical 2/3 to 3/4 when I'm there in early season, thanks again to the 4 feet of snow in December. It was all packed powder with a somewhat firm subsurface, but nothing I would call frozen granular. So I suspected there may not have been much rain, though one of the locals said it rained in town by the lake Christmas Eve. Some of the flat areas, particularly near the lifts, had hardpack that softened during the day, but this is typical SoCal melt/freeze.
Here I am at the top of Snow Summit. Sorry admin, no more red jacket to kick around. :lol: Note eastern end of Big Bear Lake is partly frozen over. I skied the main top to bottom runs first thing, then stuck to chairs 10, 7 and 6 as it got busier. Total 13,500 when I took the shuttle bus to Bear Mt. at 1:30.
No surprise Bear with its awkward layout was a zoo at the base, where the 10 minutes for Access Express was the longest lift line of my day. I skied one run on Geronimo, but my real objective was to see if the off-piste canyons had enough natural snow to ski. I had only been in them in March 1993.
Riding up the Bear Peak lift here's the view of Bow Canyon. There were "ski-at-your-own-risk" warning signs at the top, but it wasn't closed. Coverage was just adequate, not nearly as much as 1993, so it was best to stick to the most obvious and open fall lines.
This was a nice open line, though one can see that everything funnels into the gully at the bottom. The gully goes on a long way and had a few tight spots and lots of blind corners
The good news is that it was all shaded and chalky or packed powder. Clearly it did not rain at all above 7,500 feet or so around Big Bear. But you did have to ski deliberately to avoid obstacles, which were mostly partially buried logs rather than rocks. In 1993 there was spring snow and I remember 8-year-old Adam zipping fast through that gully as we know kids like to do.
Patroller with the view of San Gorgonio from the top of Bear Peak.
The canyons on either side of Bear Peak force you all the way to the bottom, so I rode chair 2 to connect to Silver Mt. Silver has just one good snowmaking cruiser from the top, but there is also a steep natural run with a double fall line Quicksilver (now renamed The Wedge in deference to SoCal surf culture).
View down Quicksilver, soft carvable snow. If the natural base holds up this can be an excellent mogul run. Last run on Silver was into Goldmine Canyon at skier's left. This was shorter but closed in more than Bow. I took a couple of pics but you can't see that much. There's also the more expansive Deer Canyon between Silver Mt. and Bear Peak, but I remember from 1993 that the gully at the bottom of that one is a real marathon and didn't want to commit to that in the lower snowpack.
I finally got in 2 runs on the usually overrun Bear Mt. Express after 4PM.
View NE near sunset over Baldwin Lake before my last run. 8,600 at Bear, 21,900 for the day.
Now I had to deal with the crowds. I caught the 4:45 shuttle back to Summit, then a second shuttle down to auxiliary parking, arriving 5:25. I had dinner in Big Bear, hopefully letting traffic clear, but that was not to be. As I drove west along the south shore of the lake, eastbound traffic coming into town after 7PM was bumper to bumper. Then my direction ground to a crawl just short of the dam. An eastbound driver asked me about his traffic and warned me that westbound was congested all the way down the 330. So I bailed out, driving around the north shore, then out the back way to Redlands, emerging there at 9:20PM, still an hour of freeway from home.
