The snow was slow to arrive in Big Bear this year, but long -term forecasts require major changes.
Bear Mountain Resort in Big Bear adds his first new chair lifting in 30 years, a six -seat high -speed elevator that will carry its first customers on Thursday.
The new lifting halfway (also known as Chaise 5) contains up to six skiers at a time. Its characteristics include a short treadmill that transports skiers and boarders to the places where the elevator will pick them up for a turn of about 2,500 feet.
“This is our new brilliant and brilliant toy for the season,” said Mark Burnett, vice-president of the complex installations, during a recent test.
Although Bear Mountain opened the chair of 7 and 9 for the season on December 13, the management waited later in the month before opening the elevator halfway, hoping for more snow that has not yet arrived. Skiers can get updates on Big Bear Time, trails and elevators here.
Meanwhile, Alterra Mountain Co., the company behind Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, Snow Valley and several of the largest West Winter stations, continues to compete on a bigger idea: connecting Bear Mountain and Snow summit with a pair of ski lifts and other equipment. This would allow skiers and residents to go back and forth between stations without driving or embarking on a shuttle.
As part of the Plan – still being examined by the US Forest Service – the stations will make “Big Bear Connect” elevators in place. To operate the plan, the two ski operations (set known as Big Bear Mountain Resort) should add approximately 300 acres to the almost 1,500 acres that they currently use under the Forest Service permits.
The forest service, owner of the field, began to collect public comments on the expansion plan offered in 2023.
“We are in the analysis phase,” said Janelle Walker, director of the United States Forest Service Resort Program, confirming that the project is still progressing. She said: “We had a necessary additional analysis and we plan to bring the environmental assessment project to the public in the spring of 2025.” Even after approval, the complexes of the complex noted, the project could take years.
In the meantime, skiers and residents have the new elevator at Bear Mountain to try.
How does the new elevator work
Bear Mountain officials said they had spent around $ 10.2 million on the new lifting halfway, which replaces the chair on television 1, 2 and 5 in the station's central area.
Designed by the Specialist Company of the Leitner-Poma elevator, it should transport passengers of 2,494 feet on the slope as little as 2.5 minutes. The elevator will be able to transport up to 3,200 people per hour, according to managers of the complex.
“Now everything we need is snow,” said Burnett.
The construction, which started in May, included helicopters carrying a dozen laps in their new places on the slopes, while other workers have dug a large hole to maintain the many mobile and stationary parts of the elevator at the foot of the mountain.
Bear Mountain, known for its field parks and half-pipe, has been operating under various names in the San Bernardino National Forest since the 1940s. For many years, the complex was based strongly on artificial snow, attracting many skiers and beginners and intermediate snowboarders.
Burnett has estimated that over the past eight years, management has invested $ 30 million in improving Bear Mountain, with an additional investment in Snow Summit and Snow Valley.
How Bear Mountain and Snow Summit could connect together
Like many ski resorts, those of Big Bear include large pieces of land in the American forest service, where the resorts operate under long -term permits for special use, building improvements and sharing part of their income with the forest service.
Bear Mountain, whose license covers 818 acres, directs seven carehouses on 198 ski acres.
Snow summit, whose license covers 656 acres, operates 10 chairlifts on 240 ski acres.
The permits are good until 2057, have declared officials of the complex, and the links would require 300 acres of land in the forest service between the two. In this area, “the imprint of disturbances” would be relatively small, said Walker – less than 100 acres.
The main way to travel between stations now is to drive or catch one of the free Interview shuttle The buses that leave every half hour for the 10-minute trip between the stations.
Although Bear Mountain and Snow Summit have been under the common property since 2002, talking about binding them to bind them did not warm up before having been bought by Mammoth Mountain in 2014, then swallowed in 2017 (with Mammoth) by the company based in Denver now known as Alterra Mountain Co.
Alterra, one of the biggest names in the ski industry, operates 19 stations in the West of the United States and Canada and uses its Ikon popular Popular Popular Passage to market them together.
The link proposed by the company between Bear Mountain and Snow Summit is part of a wider upgrade which is stated in a Master Big Bear Mountain Resort development plan, tabled by complexes of the Forest Service in 2020.
In addition to adding the area and two elevators – which on average 4,250 feet in length – the plan would include the construction of a Goldmin Mountain Lodge (including the restaurant) on Bear Mountain; the creation of 60 acres of trails in and near the expansion area; Clean the trees; And build a ski bridge so that skiers and residents can cross an existing mountain road, 2N10, which takes place between Snow Summit and Bear Mountain.
Other elements of the proposal: addition of a postal system; 12 new mountain bike paths; an “mountain mountain” attraction on land already covered by permits or belonging to Alterra; and the addition of approximately 1,400 parking spaces. Resort officials said the cost of these projects had not yet been determined, pending examinations and approvals.
To put the link between the complexes in the simplest terms, the director of advertising of the resorts of Big Bear Mountain and the director of public relations Justin Kanton said: “We are talking about a narrow ravine with two incoming and outgoing elevators.”
“And there is already a road that comes out and goes out,” added Burnett.
During the month following the August 2023 release of the plans offered by Alterra, more than 40 local residents weighed with letters at the Forest Service and expressed a mixture of prudence and support.
Mitchell Chivetta warned that “the local infrastructure cannot manage the current influx of visitors during the winter”. Even when highways 330 and 38 are in good condition, Chivetta wrote: “Traffic on these roads caused by inexperienced winter drivers creates difficulties for local residents and frustrating all drivers.”
Conversely, Justin Kohlas wrote that “we are laid back for an upgrade to stations and the mountain experience. To be able to switch from Bear Mountain to Snow Summit and Vice Versa without having to wait in a shuttle to so much sense. ”
