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