My choice would be Mt. High Friday and Baldy Saturday/Sunday but see quote below. All of these places will get slammed on the weekend, but Big Bear and Mt. High will be busier with the more casual skiers. ChrisC should skip Big Bear because the overall pitch is way too mellow for his tastes. Also the traffic on the weekend will be horrible. Even if you get there early, it will be bad when you leave. And on weekends you have to reserve parking in advance or you will be relegated to a remote mud pit and bus shuttle.
I'd skip Snow Valley too. The Slide Peak steeps are maybe 400 vertical and the rest of the mountain is very flat. And it's on the most direct road to Big Bear and so will have traffic issues.
Mt. High has an easy access road up the 138 and 2 highways from I-15. After passing through Wrightwood you will hit East first and you should park there. All parking at Mt. High is $20. You should be able to rip East's 1,600 vertical as it is much less busy than West, though it's narrow with only one run on the top 500 and just a few variations lower down. Mt. High East is far and away the best groomer skiing in SoCal.
There may or may not be a bus shuttle between East and West. In any case I think ChrisC should ski down the Discovery beginner chair up top and then skate the fire road to West. West has many more runs, and though short some of them are moderately steep. At the end of the day you can ski OB from the top of West into Sawmill Canyon, which ends at the First Tracks area in the East parking lot. Warning: Do not ski straight fall line into Sawmill Canyon, as the bottom is a long, narrow and twisty ravine. Coming from West, push skier's left when you have opportunities so you end up in the ravine closer to the East parking lot.
As you have read here, Mt. High East has been a stepchild operation for over a decade. Thus I'm disgusted to see this on the Mt. High website:
The West Resort is open from 9am-4pm. The East Resort and the Yeti's Snow Play will reopen this weekend.
So maybe you try Mt. High on Saturday. Don't expect much powder if Thursday and Friday are sunny though. I don't know if Mt. High will open earlier than 9AM Saturday, but I'd advise getting there no later than half an hour before opening on the weekend.
My reaction was to defer Baldy due to their slow process digging out lifts. I'd expect a delayed opening of Thunder Thursday and no chair 4. Chair 4 is direct south facing and will go soft if there is any sun Thursday. For expert skiers the value of chair 4 is the access to Holcumac and the slackcountry Eric's into the back of the parking lot. Both of these need to be timed for sun/corn depending on weather. Holcumac is direct south facing while Eric's varies from west to south but is mostly SW.
I'd guess chair 4 will open Friday but probably not at opening bell. In full-on spring conditions I like to ski chair 4 early in the day when it's soft and the more shaded areas are not. South Bowl might not open Thursday either and if it doesn't you might score some Friday morning powder there.
I'm assuming you have read my Baldy TR's. This season you are required to buy tickets online in advance. They have dynamic pricing, which has been getting me cheap tickets perhaps because they think us old farts can't handle the terrain/conditions. Right now adult Friday/Saturday tickets are full price $115. Sunday is $86 so maybe you should grab that as it will be $115 if bought the day before.
The voucher/receipt you get online must still be presented at a ticket window. The ticket window line was at least 30 minutes all 3 days I skied Baldy in early March, and on at least one of them it grew to an hour. On busy days Baldy tends to start spinning chair 1 around 8AM and you can have a wait for that too. I advise you get to Baldy no later than 7:30AM in view of the above logistics. You will also get cold waiting in those lines, which are completely shaded before 10AM or so. However you will be cooking once you are skiing demanding terrain in blazing sun later. So bring a layer and warmer vs. cooler gloves you can stash after you get on the hill after what will likely be an hour getting through tickets and up chair 1.
