Big Bear Blog

I didn’t get the chance to snowshoe on Monday when Big Bear was getting dumped on. The conditions were windy and at some points blizzard-like. It was much more comfortable to stay inside next to a fireplace reading my Tom Robbins book.

However, come Tuesday I took a two and a half hour lunch, went to Goldsmith’s Boardshop and rented a pair of shoes for just $10. Well worth it.

I figured since I was on my own (something I don’t advise) that I would go to a trail or area that I am quite familiar with, rather than try someplace new. I did inform people who I know dearly the general area where I would be. So I at least kept people in tune where I would be. 

My first thought was Pine Knot Trail, but for some reason I just didn’t feel the vibe. Maybe it was because there were a handful of sledders tearing it up with their sleds, including some three year old child who was balling his head off. Crying kids and snowshoeing don’t match. The best part about snowshoeing is the solitude and silence of the forest.

So I decided to go up Mill Creek Road a bit to Cabin 89 trail. I was surprised to see the road leading to Cabin 89 was plowed. I parked my truck and was just starting to put on my shoes, when soon enough a fellow at cabin 106, across the way shouted out from his patio “Your on a driveway!”

I guess I was parked on “his” driveway. It was the first time in three years that I actually saw someone occupying one of the US Forest Service leased cabins. I figured this wasn’t a good vibe either, so I backed out and headed toward 2N10 near Cedar Lake cabin.

The road was gated up, but that doesn’t mean it’s closed to snowshoeing. I strapped on the shoes and made my way up the road. The road was well plowed which made the trek a bit easier. After 100 yards or so I recognized the magic of snowshoeing, which is the uncanny silence of the woods.

I was not the first to test out the fresh snow either. In fact, I saw several snowshoe prints and a couple of cross-county ski tracks. This area looks like prime cross-county skiing territory, and I plan to rent a set of cross-country skis at Goldsmith’s next week. 

I hiked in about two miles or so and just let nature ring in my ears. It was great to see evergreens encrusted with snow and sunbeams glistened on the white, crystalline surface. The only wildlife I witnessed was a few squirrels. I hiked off the main road in hopes I would see other wildlife, or at least a variety of different animal tracks. No such luck. No sign off wildlife and the only tracks I found were cross county ski tracks and squirrel tracks.

It was a great trip nonetheless. The best part about it was I burned a few calories and definitely got a good afternoon workout.

May the peace of snow be with you,

Daniel Pea  

A few days ago I was in between classes at the resort so I thought I would take a few runs down the mountain. As I slipped up to the lift that goes all the way to the top a girl boarded up and got on the chair with me. It was a perfect Big Bear morning and the snow conditions were epic. When I asked her how her day was going she said that she was having a hard time with her toe edge turns and her boyfriend was making her practice until she got better but he hadn’t really explained how. Of course I gave her a few pointers and when we got off of the lift she went her way and I went mine.
A few hours later, I returned to the top to have a plate of the delicious veggie lasagna at the View Haus, and sure enough. I ran into the same girl.

When she saw me her eyes lit up, sported a huge smile and said, “I got it Rev!”

She then went on to explain that she practiced what I had told her all the way down Summit run and by the time she got to the bottom she had it figured out. She then went on to tell me how she did a run with her boyfriend and he was blown away at how much better she got so fast. I was totally stoked to hear that, and went inside to have lunch with a big grin on my face.

After about fifteen minutes she walked in with her boyfriend in tow and introduced him to me. After some thank yous and your welcomes he sat down and we started to shoot the breeze about boarding and biking and the sporting life we all enjoy up on our mountain top playground.

It turns out the guy does all that stuff he just never knew anyone up here to go with. Well…he does now!. Just like that a short chair ride and I have a couple new friends. I know there are many of you who would never consider coming up to Big Bear Lake without a friend to ride or ski with. Just remember one thing, there are a bunch of new friends up here playing every day…you just don’t know them yet. Come on up, ride the chair…make a new friend or two.

spreading the love, rev

It’s absolutely awesome right now! Big Bear accumulated up to 10 inches of snow last night, and it continues to fall. This is the ultimate week to play hooky. In fact, I plan to take the afternoon off to either ride Bear Mountain or take a snow shoe hike into Bow Canyon or Gold Mountain. This is so exciting! I know I am going to make the best off the fresh snow and have some fun.

Goldsmith’s Boardshop rents both snowshoes and cross country skis. The have maps and a knowledgeable staff that knows the best spots for “non-downhill” winter sports. Enough of the talk, I am going to do the walk. Check in later, I’ll be sure to give you a first person account of the fresh snow.

Remember when you go snowshoeing be sure to bring a pal. There is no reason to go snowshoeing on your own. And always tell someone of your whereabouts and estimated time of your return.

Other than that get out and enjoy the fresh powder. It looks like Big Bear will have a blanket of snow to play on for weeks.

It’s Snowtime!  
Daniel Pea  

You may have caught ESPN’s Winter X Games this last weekend broadcasted from Aspen, Colorado. This was it’s 12th year and It has become quite the production - 1 million TV viewers, 75,000 spectators and over 250 athletes were expected. While you were watching, you no doubt caught plenty of 1080s, rodeos, and whiskey flips. Even a 1260 compliments of the Flying Tomato, aka Shaun White. And maybe saw Big Air skier Jon Olsson’s gold medal-winning “switch hexelfoot 900.” But while you watched your favorite athletes shred, did it dawn on you the role Big Bear played in X Game history?

The first-ever ESPN Winter X Games was held over 10 years ago in 1997 at Snow Summit Mountain Resort, right here in Big Bear Lake, California. Competitions included snowboarding, ice climbing, snow mountain bike racing, and shovel racing. Yeah, you read that right, Super Modified Shovel Racing. And if you were here then with the 38,000 other spectators, you would have caught John Strader’s insane shovel wipeout in one of the most bizarre events in Winter X history. 
During one of the shovel races, which looks a lot like a drag race, Strader’s “shovel” completely wipes out, wrecking shovel and body. 
Strader’s injuries were severe - he suffered a broken back and internal bleeding. Surprisingly, shovel racing  hasn’t returned to the X Game line up. And one year of X Games was enough for Snow Summit.

Wait -  why were you sitting at home watching others ride on TV anyway? Storms scare you away? We’ll cut you some slack. Don’t just watch, participate.  Play hooky this week and enjoy all the fresh snow from the series of recent storms. But leave the shovel at home. On second thought, bring it in case you need to dig your car out in the morning.

Ran Dall  

Here comes the snow again. As I write this blog all I see is white. The entire place is covered. The pine trees and rooftops everything is covered with the white stuff.

That’s right Big Bear is getting dumped on again. It’s turning out to be quite a solid winter for natural snow. Big Bear accumulated about five to six inches last night and it continues to come down. We expect another six inches today and a huge dumping on Saturday. Check out Big Bear’s five day forecast.

The lake loves it, the trees thrive on it and best of all people take pleasure in it, including myself. In fact, yesterday I went on a hike in the national forest. I took the trek with my friend Scott Road. We went on our hike before the snowfall. The conditions for were decent with frozen grounds and hard-packed snow. I figured we didn’t necessarily need snowshoes for this trek. I strapped on my snow boots, Scott tied up his heavy duty hiking boots and we headed out to the forest.

We hiked about three or four miles when it occurred to us that the snow was taking a real bite at our shoes. Scott’s toes began to get a bit nippy and he started to complain that his feet were freezing up.

As we continued on Scott’s complaints got louder and more frequent. Interestingly enough my feet did not feel the cold. I sensed that the snow was trying to squeeze the blood from my feet, but I was quite content. I can’t credit my boots for the insulation; it was definitely because of my handy dandy socks. Socks are crucial for hiking and especially for snow treks. The socks I used for the hike were Wigwam wool socks. Not only are Wigwam socks well insulated, but quite comfortable I might add. We both concurred that Scott should have spent an extra few dollars on a pair of quality socks. We both agreed that quality socks can make all the difference.

We headed home to get Scott’s feet some shelter and defrost them next to the fireplace. I am proud to say my feet were just fine, thanks to my handy dandy socks. I am convinced that Wigwam products do provide the comfort to get me through all four seasons, even in the snow. Now if I could just find a set of quality boots.

Do the Wigwam Dance,

Daniel Pea

I have a friend, he’s a good friend. When I’m too loud, he doesn’t tell me to shut up.
When I’m late getting ready for the ride, he doesn’t get all frustrated and let it ruin the day.
When my jokes aren’t that funny, he still squeeks out a chuckle and when my grub’s not that good he finishes it anyway. That’s all stuff that makes a person a good friend but you know the best part about my friend?

He’s got mountain bike amnesia, just like me.
He forgets the painfully long or brutally cold rides from days gone by and he shows up again and again even after swearing he’s not going to believe me the next time I call with some crazy route in my head. We’re constantly buying high end, weather proof equipment and technical clothes but still end up with cold toes and frigid fingers because we inevitably end up hiking our bikes through the freezing slush on long un-rideable stretches and our puppy like enthusiasm keeps us out playing in the cold longer than we should.

Then a couple days go by…we start ogling the photos from our last excursion and the exuberance returns full force wiping the memories of pain and fatigue from our minds. Then we take a peek at the map and the whole darn thing starts all over again.
It goes something like this, Sean’s cell phone rings and he see’s that it’s me…

S:”hey what’s up”
R:”I’ve got a ride mapped out”
S:”I’m busy that day”
R:”I haven’t told you when it is yet!”
S:”Yeah but I know how your rides go, and I’m sure I’ll get more rest if I go to work!”
R:”Oh come on it won’t be that bad…remember those great shots we got that day?”
S” Yeah but…well…how far is it?”
R:”I’m not sure but it looks really fun on the map, let’s do it” Then I reel him in like a big fish with some kind of interesting facts or total b.s. about the ride.
S:”O.K. where do we meet and what do I need to bring?”
He’s a good friend.
The next time one of your buddies wants to go on a nice long ride up here on our mountain top playground accept the challenge and go for it, you too can be a good friend!
rev

The All-Mountain Freestyle Park gets all the hype, with 123 features spread all over the resort, but Bear Mountain is also fun for traditional alpine skiers too.
 
For every jib and jump there’s a terrific line for those who mostly just like to carve turns and cruise…like our Big Bear Today Magazine Team. Oh, we’ll tackle the smaller jumps and a few us middleaged children even do rails and boxes (mostly with no success but plenty of bruises). But for the most part we’re into turns, lots and lots of turns, and Bear Mountain has some of the region’s best carving terrain even while it’s home to the nation’s only all-mountain terrain park.
 
So Steve Dietz and I headed out on the busiest weekend of the season (January 12), right after the big storms brought almost two feet of snow, and while we caught the fresh powder as it was falling at Snow Summit, we went to Bear for a packed powder followup. Summit handles the crowds better than Bear, with its perfectly-layed out mountain and two high speed quads out of the base, but there are places to get away from the people at Bear too. And when Bear is fully open, it has a feel and vibe all its own, beyond The Park and pipes (halfpipe and quarter pipe open, So Cal’s only Superpipe coming soon with snowguns in place).
 
Like Silver Mountain, which is where we went after working our way up the Big Bear Express quad out of the base area. While the lift maze looked daunting on the chaotic weekend it was really open 10 or 15 minutes till we were whisked to the top. The park descends to the right down Claimjumper for a barrage of jumps and jibs, dragging snowboarders and skiers with it, but Rip’s Run usually has way better snow, at least for we carvers, groomed corduroy still to be enjoyed despite our noon arrival.
 
Then we went straight to Silver, Bear’s second highest peak of four with 935 vertical feet. As usual, there was no lift line–Silver Mountain never has a lift line, no matter how busy the weekend!–and conditions were terrific down Exhibition, the blue square with a pitch that’s steeper than you’d expect. Every turn–we threw plenty–kicked up spritzes of fluffy snow, little clouds of smoke that enveloped us.
 
Silver is also home to Rip Cord, a two-part wrap around that’s a gas, sometimes hiding Bear’s best snow. Lower section is an intermediate loop that’s a hoot, but higher up there’s a connector that’s low advanced with an off-camber fall line that adds to the challenge. We thought it might be hardpack so we avoided it the first few times down, but finally gave it a try and discovered great packed powder with nothing slick. Should have been on it sooner! Oh ye of little faith.
 
The Wedge, the twisting off-camber black diamond drop from the top above Rip Cord formerly known as Quicksilver, was marked closed but all the tracks showed more than one person has been willing to risk their boards for a shot at freshies. Same with the nice off piste sections between Rip Cord and Exhibition. No thanks–I’ll wait till one more storm covers all the rocks…
 
Finally we had our fill and went down to the famous 13,000 sq. ft. deck for beers and party…only after checking out the tamer jumps on the way down. Steve even took on a gentle box in The Scene with a slight sideways tilt that gave him a jolt but no fall on the landing. So we opted for a seat inside Trappers Lounge with an added bonus: playoff football! By the time we pried ourselves away from the action there was only time for a couple passes down the Claimjumper where we found still good snow down Rip’s, plus good carving down Skier’s left. And yeah, we fiddled with a couple jumps on the way in, while the younger set flew over building-high jumps.
 
As the sun went down we returned to Trappers for more apres ski that finished on the deck under het lamps and stars. With the best conditions in years and the days still short, it doesn’t get any better than this…but we’ll try to top it.

Marcus

Hunting for a place to rest its weary flakes, a so-called “monster storm” finally found us up here in Big Bear and did some damage before answering all the skiers and snowboarders snow hungry hopes.  With a storm like this on the horizon, plenty of powder hounds were ready to get theirs and start the year off with the soundless sound of base n’ edges on fluff.  But, after a full day of rain and temps sticking to around 36%, the snow was no where to be seen and the stoke of freshies was dwindling rapidly.  Then (finally!!) on Sunday, January 6 the snow hit and kept coming for a good two days which gave the resorts a much needed boost after a devastating Saturday closure.  With almost two feet piling up after the skies cleared, hopes were revived with jackets zipped, layers layered and tires a’ spinnin’ the storm riders came in hordes to hit it up before having to go back to work post holiday.  Now, from here the story goes in two directions:  Sunday:  super fun fresh tracks with every run but freezing cold……….Monday:  it rained on top of 10 inches of forbidden powder!  Which day would you rather ride?  I choose both and got to get 5th chair up Geronimo on Sunday as well as some awesome park runs at Bear.  That was in some ways the best day of the season so far! (except for slip sliding on a ice sheet and jacking up my elbow—it’s fine now, thanks for asking)  As far as Monday, what looked like wide open powder fields forever was actually evil ice coated temptation that lured the eager rider into its grasp, only to up end the poor thrill seeker……leaving him defeated but still ready to try another spot.  Too bad the whole mountain was masked under a 1/2 sheet of hard ice from a morning stint of rain and this boarder was disgusted after multiple attempts and slaying the ice/powder monster only to end up with bruised shins and a need for more powder (hold the ice).  So, not to be disappointed, this rider was happy to go home and pull out the shovel, heat up some coffee and attack the rest of the snowy drive.  Playing in the snow makes you feel young and vibrant, at least until the plows come back and leave you with another 4 foot berm to break up! 

I rode again at night this last Saturday January 12 at Summit. I must say I was quite happy to find decent snow on most of the runs; not bad for night riding. Try Westridge for the best snow conditions and after warming up hit the park. The park staff has had fun with the new building material and the park run shows it with a bigger side hip hit and elevated boxes to slide. 

This season is far from over so keep those legs strong and bases waxed and check back for more local views of a snowboarders life in Big Bear.

Keep Thinking Snow,

Land Crab

Happy 2008 everybody! I Hope your New Years celebration was a grand time with good friends and family.

Now that the holidays are over you can start thinking about what you’re going to do with your year. If you’re reading this blog there’s a good chance outdoor adventure is part of your plan. If you’re anything like me, you’re always challenging yourself to learn new things.

Well if snowboarding is on the list, now’s the perfect time! Our snow conditions are spectacular and this season we have a great staff of enthusiastic instructors at the Snowsports School at Snow Summit.

It’s exciting for me to be back teaching and I want to send out a personal invite to come up and learn to snowboard on our 7,000 ft. playground. If learning from a gnarly snowboarder dude does not sound fun, then know that we have a bunch of beautiful soft voiced professional boarder babes just waiting to show you how fun snowboarding can be. Come on up, the only way you’re going to find out the names of the snowboard instructors in the photo is to sign up for a lesson, you might find yourself in their class!

I’m sure some of you have friends that want to teach you. Well take it from me, it’s worth the time and money to take a class and learn from the pros. We’ll teach you how to practice good habits from the start. For example, everyday our ski patrol staff takes people that “knew how to board” down the mountain in a basket, because they were never taught good safe boarding skills.

I’m personally challenging you to challenge yourself! Don’t be the only one at your work or school without a goggle tan! We’ll even teach you to ski or ride if that’s your thing. See you on the bunny hill!

spreading the love all over the mountain,
rev

It was great to wake up to the white stuff today! There is nothing like waking up to it. The trees look like they are coated with sugar, the ground looks like marshmallows and the rooftops like the froth of a cappuccino. Sorry, I was a bit hungry when I wrote this blog.

The great news is Big Bear accumulated 10 inches of snow overnight, and a total of 15 - 18 inches for the weekend. Unfortunately, it didn’t hit on Friday as predicted, a weak storm came in on Saturday which helped, but it was super Sunday that brought the most white stuff. The snow feels clean and refreshing. There are mounds of it piled all around town. In fact, I had to actually shovel my driveway for clearance today. The skies are blue, the roads are getting plowed, the ski resorts are 100% open, and best of all the snow covered mountains are screaming “Come out and Play!!!” 

Right now, it looks like there will be plenty playtime in the snow. I suggest the snow will stick around for at least two to three weeks, but if everything goes right the snow gods will deliver some more. Yeah!

This weekend I plan to do a snowshoe trek on Saturday and will hit the slopes with the snowboard on Sunday. I’ll be sure to let you know how that goes. If you get the opportunity come up before the weekend, and enjoy the frosty white stuff while it’s still fresh! You’ll be glad you did.

Let it Snow,

Daniel Pea