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Almost Heaven: Or close to it at this altitude.
Looking down on the town of Big Bear Lake from 10,000’ high Sugarloaf Mountain, it appears little changed over the last 100 years. The man-made reservoir of the lake shines indigo in the sun and the growing sprawl of weekend cabins, across the 12 mile long valley floor, huddles under a thick canopy of tall pines. The grizzly bears that once roamed the alpine meadows are but a memory, commemorated by a Grizzly Lane or the Grizzly newspaper and the Indians, who once migrated from the desert floor in summer, are long gone.
But despite the inevitable encroachment of civilization, bald eagles still return every winter. A favorite pair, George and Gracie, can be spotted, in their bare-limbed perch tree, at the end of a telescope at the Discovery Center or soaring above the frozen lake, picking off unlucky coots stuck in the ice. The occasional black bear creates excitement and headlines as it forages in the hills behind the cabins in Moonridge and Fawnskin, and mule deer seek the safe side of the mountain in hunting season.
I moved from Santa Monica 30 years ago, artfully swapping one easy-going laid-back lifestyle for another. At that time the typical night out was an evening of pool and beer with the old timers at Chad’s Place in the village, or drinking too much at the disco above the bowling alley. You could still catch rainbow trout as they homed, like pigeons, back to their traditional spawning grounds up Castle Rock Creek before they subdivided the area into Papoose Bay. Of course age, like twilight, softens rough edges and I got used to the quiet, the eerie whisper of the wind through the pine trees that once seemed so threatening in its unfamiliarity. My morning hike out the back gate and up the screed granite trail is an entertainment of raucous Clarks nutcrackers, a solitary hawk, wheeling and searching and tiny chickadees in an aerial tango, frisky in the crisp morning air. This is an entitlement that I never take for granted.
Unknown to most people, Big Bear Lake has a long and varied history. The Serrano Indians escaped the searing heat of the desert, spending the summer months in the mountains gathering pinion nuts and acorns and hunting deer, antelope and quail; Mormon pioneers lumbered in the valley in the 1850s; and in the alpine tradition of Switzerland and Austria, ranchers drove their cattle and sheep from Lucerne Valley, Yucaipa and Redlands to the valley’s sweet highland meadows for seasonal pasture. The Talmadge, Knight and Shay families eventually gave up wood cutting and took up ranching, becoming the first permanent settlers in the valley, and after the dam that created Big Bear Lake was completed in 1885 they built the first hotels and summer camps for the burgeoning tourist industry.
Holcomb Valley, behind the mountains to the north of the lake, became the scene, in the second half of the 19 th century, of several short-lived but frenetic gold mining booms. The promise of gold to rival that of the rush of 1849 did not materialize – although sporadic mining continued until the 1950s – but the ramshackle collection of saloons, dancehalls, stores and rustic clapboard homes, known as Belleville, grew to 1000 and narrowly lost the election for county seat to San Bernardino. The story goes that the ballots of the eastern precinct were lost in a fire. Evidence of the old arrastres (a primitive tool that ground the gold out of the ore) lurk in tailings that still litter the landscape like giant mole hills.
Unlike Santa Monica, Big Bear has resisted complete gentrification. Yes, we have our McMansions and equestrian estates and the granite and marble showplaces that ring the lake, enough even to rival our upscale cousin Lake Arrowhead and the Village has been primped and preened and landscaped. But the casual nature of our mountain community tones down any excessive uber-hype and Mayberry can still to be found in the rustic mountain cabins in the hills behind the village. Iconic and long established eateries such as the Teddy Bear Restaurant and the Grizzly Manor Café continue to serve slow food, as they have before it became a fashionable standard to hang a kitchen on.
At this altitude (the valley floor is 6400’) you’d be stretching it to call the weather balmy, but that’s exactly what it is in summer. Temperatures rarely rise over 82 degrees and residents grumble if it reaches 90 degrees; we have no air-conditioning. But we do have soft breezes that riffle across our lake and through our dense green woodlands. We await the change in seasons with eager anticipation, already regretting our short summer but anxious for the change. The sound of chainsaws heralds falls luminous light and crisp days. The temperatures drop and once again the trout are biting; there’s the smell of wood-smoke in the air. We start betting on the first snow-fall, the ski-resorts lube their snow guns and snow cats, permits for wood cutting are issued – we’re like squirrels gathering nuts in our haste to prepare for winter.
Outdoorsy is how I would characterize my town. Snow Summit and Bear Mountain ski resorts have evolved from the single rope tow of the 50s (one man’s dream,) to the premier resort in Southern California, owned and operated by long time stockholders and still managed by the family. The trails around the valley offer a spectacular variety of terrain for hiking and biking and reward the effort with stunning views of the lake. They intersect the Pacific Crest Trail at intervals if you’ve a mind to head for Canada or Mexico.
Officially the population hovers at around 15,000 souls but that’s without our weekend residents. It’s become an escape from the rigors of the weekly grind for thousands of southern Californians and the comings and goings keep a willing real estate community hopping. Big Bear is a place where the social graces are still in play; a place still considered rural enough that the post office holds your mail; where a stranger smiles as he holds the door for you. If your dog strays chances are you’ll find it on the local radio, fundraisers by the service organizations are major social events, and a quick trip to the supermarket can become the social hour.
Granted, style is not in the forefront here (think late lumberjack rather than Badgley Mischka) however, I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be, with the exception perhaps of Paris in the springtime or the deserted beaches of Fraser Island anytime.
So excuse me while I take my coffee out to the deck and watch for satellites as they scud across my dazzling night sky.
Ride the Mountain
This may be the catch phrase for “boarders” at “Bear” but we are about to make it our own.
On one of those transcendent spring days, a day that makes the long chill of winter almost worth it, warm and fragrant, we hooked our bikes (looking like sides of beef in the butchers freezer), to the back of the sky chair at Snow Summit for a ride to the top of the mountain.
Where normally I’d be gazing down at perfectly groomed ski runs, today I’m transfixed by a blanket of tender green grass underneath me; oak trees, their tender new leaves still furled, red around the edges and about to burst forth; and young Spruce saplings, sucking up the moisture from the many springs on the hillside. The views are spectacular and if I carefully maneuver my body around I can see a sparkling indigo lake, full to overflowing with the melt of the previous winters’ abundant snowfall.
The View Haus at the top of the mountain looms ahead and the siren smell of barbeque demands a quick stop. As we munch our burgers on the back deck, the windswept grey spine of San Gorgonio Mountain, 10 miles distant, sports lingering patches of snow.
Armed with our trail map, we coast down a small service road behind the pond and compressor house (silent now that the snow guns have been put to bed), to forestry road 2N10. This road runs the length of the ridge, from Moonridge to the Village, with many small offshoots that snake through the mountains. It’s easy to get lost, so a good trail map is essential.
The road is challenging with many uphill grades and sand traps to unseat the careless. It’s challenging, but not impossibly so, with many uphill draws, and a cooling breeze gently rustles the ponderosa pines that throw thin shadows across the trail. We ride for an hour, relishing the cloudless sky and the views across to the San Gorgonio Wilderness, all the way down to Yucaipa and San Bernardino.
At Grandview Point we hike about ½ mile through an ageless, twisted, wind blown landscape of Manzanita and Jeffrey pine, to a fortress of enormous granite boulders where an uneven palette of green spews its colors all the way down the Santa Ana River valley and along the serpentine of Clarkes Grade – the original road to Big Bear.
From here it’s all downhill; past secluded alpine meadows, spring fed and boggy, feeding mountain lilies and ferns; past the cloven tracks of elusive mule deer; through clear cut areas, cleared of dead pines pocked with the holes of opportunistic bark beetles that thrived during the recent drought.
We emerge from the forest to a trail so steep that I need both brakes. We pass cyclists – steadily pedaling – hot, sweaty and winded. Don’t they know there’s an easier way?
After one more stop to admire a scene out of “Views to Write Home About” (I’m sure there must be such a book); a vista of marinas, their pleasure boats neatly arranged as if in formation, across the lake to a white dot that marks the Solar Observatory on the north shore, we meet the Town Trail and ride the 15 minutes back to the base of Snow Summit.
What seems like an all day adventure has only taken three hours. Tired and exhilarated and infinitely proud of ourselves, we feel the mountain is ours, an old friend, comfortable and familiar.
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“I’m glad this is not my car.”
Comforting words from my friend Lupe as I inch my way down a forestry trail in my trusty, but 10 year old, Dodge Durango, over boulder sized rocks and Dolomite shaped shards that threaten to puncture my tires any second and have us all hiking back to the highway. I glare at her sideways, stiffen my spine, and hold my breath.
Another off the grid hike led by our friend “Spur.” I love the shortening of his last name Spurlock, it fits him somehow: as fitting as his boy-scout attitude and his love of places wild and wooly. These he has been sharing with this random group of midlife realtors, who, although barely able to keep their A-type personalities in check, follow, trustingly, along unmarked trails in search of quaking aspens.
Just beyond where the road crosses the Pacific Crest Trail, that 2’ wide pathway that snakes through three states along the west coast from Mexico to Canada, we park and wander off. There is no pathway so it’s off into the woods down a gentle slope covered in pine needles, pushing our way through a copse of yellowing willows, once again coming across those square stemmed plants – wild salvia. We parallel a dry creek bed, marking the tall ponderosas for our return trip, and gradually funnel into a canyon chocked with boulders, willows, ironwood and pines.
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Up we hike: we slide on pine needles and decomposed granite; we search for the best routes; we haul ourselves up and over granite monoliths, grateful for a helping hand and a dry stream bed (what it must look like in a 100 year flood, water cascading down this forest chute and dropping over granite cataracts.) Gold flickers through the pines, and the forest magically opens onto a hidden grove of aspens, shimmering in the sun. The wind picks up at times giving rise to the signature sound, soft and insistent, like a snare drum.
So unusual is this stand of aspens, like gold relief on a tired green landscape, that it begs savoring. A delicious pause and a worthy trek.
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The Shortcut
On another perfect fall day – temperatures in the 60s, the sun weak but warming, a wafting breeze which is the perfect air conditioner – Spur and his team of three, set out, up Sugarloaf Mountain.
The little group has thinned which, it turns out, is a good thing for this mountain will kick our butts today. Our shortcut starts at Wildhorse Meadows about 8 miles along 2N93 which knocks off about 3 miles of uphill from the trailhead. There is payback though: we have to serpentine our way up a steep slope, careful not to crush the protected Manzanita in all their red and green glory, marking our trail by sight and by random pink ribbons fluttering from tree branches.
We find our trail and follow rock cairns called ducks and rough blazes etched deeply into the pines. We trek, single file, along ridges that display unparalleled views of San Gorgonio on one side and Baldwin Lake on the other.
Nature lays out her spectacular geology and flora for us. We stand in awe in a circle of ancient gnarled junipers, standing as if for some Druid ritual, wade through buckthorn bushes that carpet a glade of lodgepole pines, the forest littered with enough downed logs to build a cabin. A tor of black slate erupts from the mountain – an unlikely host to an ironwood tree that drapes its roots like a lacey network over the rock, and a statuesque juniper thrusting out of raw slate catches the late afternoon sun for a perfect photograph. As we climb higher the scree on the trail gets treacherous and my lungs burn and I hear an alarming thump that is my heart.
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On and on we trudge, up the mountainside, along the never ending switchbacks to false peaks, always disappointing. This is my third climb so I expect them and anticipate each new one with irritation. At last we reach the top – 9958 feet above Big Bear – marked by a large cairn. We add our comments to the small spiral notebook that is provided every season and shove it back into its plastic container. A lone Clarks Nutcracker swoops between branches, the only bird we have seen all day.
It’s all downhill from here and grateful I am for the short cut. My fatigued muscles buckle on the scree making the descent treacherous and the light grows more luminous as it slants across the mountain turning the harsh glare of midday into the prismatic magic of evening.
I smile at the fact that I’ve gone the gamut of emotions to end up elated at once again having survived Sugarloaf.
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