Hey SoCal,

I'm usually posting on the Four Corners forum but I'll be in your neck of the woods next week. Ill be skiing at Bear mountain and staying at a cabin nearby. Does anyone know of any good runs that are really close to bear mountain? I'd love to spend a day wheeling if possible, but I don't know the area at all

 

NGINIER:

There are numerous trails and roads to wheel in the Big Bear area. A number of them are on the North side of Big Bear Lake (whereas Bear Moutain Resort is on the South side of the Lake), however, it is a very short drive to get from one side to the other.

If you do not have any books showing the trails and roads in Big Bear, I suggest that you go to the "Discovery Center" on the North Shore (it is a mile or two west of Stanfield Cutoff Road (one of the roads that takes you from south of the lake to the north side.) At the "Discovery Center" you can get a map and guide of some of the trails in the back-country, as well as, an Adventure Pass ($5 for one day, or $30 for a year -- the Pass is necessary if you stop and recreate along the trail.)

Also, you can look through this SoCal area and there are many threads that talk about Big Bear runs.

For some reference, here is a map of a portion of Big Bear (if you notice at the bottom center of the map it says "SNOW SUMMIT," that is close to "Bear Mountain" -> many of the wheelin' areas are on the north side of the lake). THe map also has the Discovery Center located on it, below:

 

There are lots of places to wheel in Big Bear. SoCal_JK_2dr's info is excellent. Beyond that, I'd recommend Charles Wells's Southern California Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails book. It's a little light on the descriptions, but it has a lot of the Big Bear trails listed.

 

Are those trails in Big Bear snowed in at all this time of year?

 

Gold Mountain is a fun trail that has a few challenging obstacles and it is still open. It is only about a 10 minute drive from either of the ski resorts. What date where you planning on wheeling? I have a cabin up there so I may be able to meet up with you.

 

I'll be getting in Sunday night and I should be there all week, I haven't picked a day to go wheeling yet... I'll let you guys know though, Im leaning towards Thursday though

 

Sorry guys, I couldn't get around to offroading, the group I was with didn't seem to want to too much and I didn't have time. When I was leaving the cabin on Friday though, I took a different exit out the neighborhood and drove by a silver JK with a project-jk.com sticker(I think...) Is that one of you guys? The cabin I was at was on Cascade in the Moonridge area.

 

Yup that was me.

I snowboarded on Saturday and on Sunday went up to Fawnskin towards 3N16 when we came across a guy with a JK rubicon that got stuck in the snow. I wasn't able to pull him out as I couldn't get enough traction in the snow and he was up to his axles in snow. Anyways, we are giving him a ride back down to call someone to get him out (I offered to just help him dig, he wasn't really interested, guess he just wanted to pay someone) and we come across another stuck vehicle. This time a 4wd van. Same story there, couldn't pull him out.

So basically I spend sunday waiting for a unimog to come up and winch the guy that was blocking me out. Fun day though. It was just funny that I was just sitting there not stuck but unable to move becuase I was inbetween two stuck vehicles.