The November/December storms hitting the Sierra have done very little in SoCal, but they did drive the temps down intermittently for snowmaking at Big Bear. The snowmaking push last week got my favored terrain (chairs 6 and 10 at Snow Summit and Silver/Bear Peaks at Bear Mt.) open by Dec. 19. I got back from NYC late Tuesday and thought I could squeeze in a ski day.
I got up there by 8:15 to ensure close-in parking at Snow Summit and the lot was the emptiest I had ever seen, only about 10% occupied. I thought maybe this is what happens when you ski Christmas Eve, but soon discovered the real reason. Under Mammoth's new management hours have been cut back to those typical of destination resorts. The lifts opened at 8:45AM, and if not for the holiday it might have been 9AM. Summit formerly opened at 8AM and may have even been earlier on some weekends and holidays. Big Bear is 75% a daytripper area and from 35 years of skiing there I can confidently say many of their customers like to get up there early. On a weekend you would not get a parking spot in the lot at the base if you got there after about 8:20. FYI the lot did fill sometime in the morning as people were coming up from the remote shuttle lots when I moved to Bear Mt. after lunch.
The potentially more unpleasant surprise was that it rained in the SoCal mountains much of Tuesday. Fortunately nobody in my experience does more intense snowmaking and grooming than Big Bear and 80+% of snow surfaces were in good shape. It was 26F when I arrived and 37F when I left but it was breezy all day. The wind drifted some of the manmade snow into smooth patches over the corduroy as seen here at the bottom of Miracle Mile.
I don't think this was intentional "gunpowder" like at Sun Valley. It was silky smooth skiing but I could tell that if it had been several inches instead just one that the snow would have taken some work to push around.
Between the runs evidence of Tuesday's rain was obvious.
I skied the main top-to-bottom groomers Miracle Mile, Summit Run, Log Chute and Westridge first before more people arrived. Here's a view down the low intermediate Chair 9 toward Big Bear Lake.
A little before 10AM Chair 10 opened with Summit's best sustained groomed pitches.
The true test of Big Bear's slope repair expertise would be the steepest runs Wall and Olympic.
Olympic and skier's right of the Wall had been intensely treated but not skier's left of the Wall. The latter is where I ventured first and had a barely controlled skid ~50 feet until I ran into one of those manmade snow patches. Here's a close view riding the lift.
Note the loose groomed snow to the left of the liftline and the frozen granular to the right. Patrol later roped off the latter entry.
I had lunch 11:30-12:30, skied 3 more runs and finished Snow Summit at 1:30 with 19,500 vertical.
I took the shuttle to Bear, arriving 1:45. I took the Big Bear Express lift overlooking the extensive park features.
The double chair at upper right and the slopes to the right of that were not open yet.
View from the top of Big Bear Express.
This is the classic "What am I doing here instead of up there?" view. San Gorgonio is 3,000 feet higher, but still a bit lean on natural snow so far this year. And access is arduous, as I documented in May 2011: viewtopic.php?t=9678
I skied Showtime on the way to Silver Mt. and 2 runs there. Snow at Bear was somewhat more hardpacked with a few frozen granular spots. Some of this was from being later in the day, but Bear has fewer runs to distribute a similar number of people, most of whom are snowboarders there for the extensive park features. From Silver here is the view toward Bear Peak.
That's interesting terrain but rarely does it have adequate snow cover. And when it does Mt. Baldy will have more. The canyon between Silver and Bear Peaks is deep, forcing you to ski all the way to the base.
I finally got to Bear Peak and skied 3 runs on Geronimo. The lower pitch can be slick, and no surprise on my first ride I saw the remains of an extensive yard sale.
After my first run patrol was still assisting one of those people getting skis back on.
View of upper 2/3 of Geronimo.
I caught the 3:15 bus back to my car at Snow Summit after 8,300 vertical at Bear. It is possible that the total 27,800 is the most I've skied at Big Bear in a day. Chairs 6&10 at Summit and Silver and Bear Peaks are all by slow lifts, though they almost never have lines.
This month has amply demonstrated the value of the Big Bear Lake water supply. Summit is 72% open and Bear about 70%. Meanwhile Mt. High West is 28% open and they aren't even thinking about East yet. After some investigation after my Dec. 9 day at Mammoth I discovered that the 4 year drought has curtailed the recharge capacity of Mammoth's snowmaking wells. This is the reason Mammoth was unable to open Canyon Lodge for Thanksgiving. Fortunately after the 6 feet of December snow Mammoth is probably done with snowmaking for this season.
In May 2013 Patrick and I discovered some common ground among our personal ski stats. At that time:
I had skied 239 calendar dates and 1166 days.
Patrick had skied 235 calendar dates and 1139 days since keeping records in high school.
2015 has been a good year for adding to my calendar date list, now 247. I skied my last 2 unskied dates in April in Colorado and now 2 of my 4 unskied dates in December. There were also 2 new dates at Las Lenas plus November 11 at Mammoth. The start of Mammoth's season makes it likely I may knock off some of the 3 unskied dates in May next year.
I got up there by 8:15 to ensure close-in parking at Snow Summit and the lot was the emptiest I had ever seen, only about 10% occupied. I thought maybe this is what happens when you ski Christmas Eve, but soon discovered the real reason. Under Mammoth's new management hours have been cut back to those typical of destination resorts. The lifts opened at 8:45AM, and if not for the holiday it might have been 9AM. Summit formerly opened at 8AM and may have even been earlier on some weekends and holidays. Big Bear is 75% a daytripper area and from 35 years of skiing there I can confidently say many of their customers like to get up there early. On a weekend you would not get a parking spot in the lot at the base if you got there after about 8:20. FYI the lot did fill sometime in the morning as people were coming up from the remote shuttle lots when I moved to Bear Mt. after lunch.
The potentially more unpleasant surprise was that it rained in the SoCal mountains much of Tuesday. Fortunately nobody in my experience does more intense snowmaking and grooming than Big Bear and 80+% of snow surfaces were in good shape. It was 26F when I arrived and 37F when I left but it was breezy all day. The wind drifted some of the manmade snow into smooth patches over the corduroy as seen here at the bottom of Miracle Mile.
I don't think this was intentional "gunpowder" like at Sun Valley. It was silky smooth skiing but I could tell that if it had been several inches instead just one that the snow would have taken some work to push around.
Between the runs evidence of Tuesday's rain was obvious.
I skied the main top-to-bottom groomers Miracle Mile, Summit Run, Log Chute and Westridge first before more people arrived. Here's a view down the low intermediate Chair 9 toward Big Bear Lake.
A little before 10AM Chair 10 opened with Summit's best sustained groomed pitches.
The true test of Big Bear's slope repair expertise would be the steepest runs Wall and Olympic.
Olympic and skier's right of the Wall had been intensely treated but not skier's left of the Wall. The latter is where I ventured first and had a barely controlled skid ~50 feet until I ran into one of those manmade snow patches. Here's a close view riding the lift.
Note the loose groomed snow to the left of the liftline and the frozen granular to the right. Patrol later roped off the latter entry.
I had lunch 11:30-12:30, skied 3 more runs and finished Snow Summit at 1:30 with 19,500 vertical.
I took the shuttle to Bear, arriving 1:45. I took the Big Bear Express lift overlooking the extensive park features.
The double chair at upper right and the slopes to the right of that were not open yet.
View from the top of Big Bear Express.
This is the classic "What am I doing here instead of up there?" view. San Gorgonio is 3,000 feet higher, but still a bit lean on natural snow so far this year. And access is arduous, as I documented in May 2011: viewtopic.php?t=9678
I skied Showtime on the way to Silver Mt. and 2 runs there. Snow at Bear was somewhat more hardpacked with a few frozen granular spots. Some of this was from being later in the day, but Bear has fewer runs to distribute a similar number of people, most of whom are snowboarders there for the extensive park features. From Silver here is the view toward Bear Peak.
That's interesting terrain but rarely does it have adequate snow cover. And when it does Mt. Baldy will have more. The canyon between Silver and Bear Peaks is deep, forcing you to ski all the way to the base.
I finally got to Bear Peak and skied 3 runs on Geronimo. The lower pitch can be slick, and no surprise on my first ride I saw the remains of an extensive yard sale.
After my first run patrol was still assisting one of those people getting skis back on.
View of upper 2/3 of Geronimo.
I caught the 3:15 bus back to my car at Snow Summit after 8,300 vertical at Bear. It is possible that the total 27,800 is the most I've skied at Big Bear in a day. Chairs 6&10 at Summit and Silver and Bear Peaks are all by slow lifts, though they almost never have lines.
This month has amply demonstrated the value of the Big Bear Lake water supply. Summit is 72% open and Bear about 70%. Meanwhile Mt. High West is 28% open and they aren't even thinking about East yet. After some investigation after my Dec. 9 day at Mammoth I discovered that the 4 year drought has curtailed the recharge capacity of Mammoth's snowmaking wells. This is the reason Mammoth was unable to open Canyon Lodge for Thanksgiving. Fortunately after the 6 feet of December snow Mammoth is probably done with snowmaking for this season.
In May 2013 Patrick and I discovered some common ground among our personal ski stats. At that time:
I had skied 239 calendar dates and 1166 days.
Patrick had skied 235 calendar dates and 1139 days since keeping records in high school.
2015 has been a good year for adding to my calendar date list, now 247. I skied my last 2 unskied dates in April in Colorado and now 2 of my 4 unskied dates in December. There were also 2 new dates at Las Lenas plus November 11 at Mammoth. The start of Mammoth's season makes it likely I may knock off some of the 3 unskied dates in May next year.