I normally send SoCal reports only to Southland Ski Server, but there are aspects of the Big Bear Lake ski areas that the many eastern readers on this list may find relevant. <BR> <BR>Big Bear Lake is about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. The lift service from 7,000 - 8,500 (one lift/run goes to 8,800) gets only 5-6 feet of natural snow per season as it is leeward of the 10,000+ foot San Gorgonio Wilderness. The lake is an abundant source of snowmaking, and Snow Summit realized as early as the 1970's that high capacity snowmaking was the key to a viable operation in this climate. In the dry climate it is normally below freezing at night but rarely during the day. <BR> <BR>For a detailed guide to Snow Summit, see <A HREF="http://home.earthlink.net/~tcrocker818/sumtguid.htm" TARGET="_top">http://home.earthlink.net/~tcrocker818/sumtguid.htm</A>. The other area, Bear Mt., also made snow from the lake but had a revolving door of managements: local, SKI Ltd., Fibreboard, Booth Creek. None of these executed grooming or snowmaking as well as Snow Summit. Over the past decade the clientele at both areas became about 2/3 snowboarders, and Snow Summit responded by converting 1/4 of its terrain to terrain parks. These parks have been rated among the best in North America and have attracted professional freeskiing events as well. <BR> <BR>Last summer Snow Summit bought Bear Mt. and immediately overhauled the snowmaking. While retaining about 20% of the mountain at Summit as terrain parks, they have built park features on ALL blue runs at Bear. <BR> <BR>This year both areas (~200 acres each) reached full operation about a week before Christmas on sustained cold weather and about 18 inches natural, and maintained it through a warm January with zero natural snow. <BR> <BR>My first visit to the combined operation was last Saturday Feb. 22 (Southland report copied below). <BR> <BR>It really is amazing what modern resort technology can do to restore quality skiing after 3 days of pouring rain (Feb. 11-13) plus another 3 before snowmaking resumed. Snow Summit has ground up the hard surface, made snow nightly for most of the week, plus some help from the 2-3 inches natural Wednesday night. <BR> <BR>Olympic was the only open run we skied which had not received the above treatment, and its uneven boilerplate patches gave a good insight into the way the rest of the area has been restored over the past week. <BR> <BR>Weather was warm, probably 50F by midday, but the snow had frozen overnight, so there was no slush up to the time we left for Bear Mt. at noon. <BR> <BR>The Westridge Park was about like it usually has been in mid-December: lots of <BR>small features and just a few larger ones. The limitations on January <BR>snowmaking were evident from the very few hits on the lowest part of the run. <BR>They put in lots of rails to make up for the smowmaking restrictions on <BR>building big jumps. Ego Trip still has some large hits, but they are moved to <BR>one side of the run by design this year. The pipe on Zzyzx is not quite as big as before, and not as well maintained as the new one at Bear. <BR> <BR> <BR>We took the shuttle over from Summit and skied from 12:15 to 3:45. We skied 14K in that time, much of it in terrain parks, so there is certainly enough lift capacity to get in a good day. The current layout of terrain does force you to the base area on most runs and it is pretty congested down there. It's also slushy on a warm day with flat areas and that many people. <BR> <BR>I was curious to see the changes from Snow Summit's takeover. Most obvious is the snowmaking and grooming are now to their standards. The boilerplate and ice patches which were routine on Geronimo before (particularly after a big rain event like we just had) were absent this time. <BR> <BR>Summit management had also stated their intent to include park features on all blue runs at Bear. This has been accomplished, and with enough spacing that there is room to use or not use the hits at one's option. As at Summit there were lots of rails and small jumps and just a few large hits due to the limited snowmaking in January. My 18-year old got to practice what he learned about rails and jumps at SMS Freeride Camp last June all day today. As for me with 50-year-old knees, it was just as well most of the jumps were fairly small. (End Southland report) <BR> <BR>One development at both areas has been the total extinction of moguls by grooming. I hadn't thought about this much until I read the lengthy commentary on one of your Cannon reports. <BR> <BR>Reasons: <BR>1) The clientele last Saturday was about 60% snowboarders at Summit and 80% at Bear. <BR>2) Big western mountains in the Sierra don't have a problem with lack of moguls. Even with lots of grooming there are always some places (including of intermediate pitch) to ski bumps. And at Mammoth the bumps are usually packed powder or soft on warm spring days.