Bear Mountain 11.19.09

Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, and Mountain High are often the victims of an inversion, an unusual rise in temperature at increased elevation. This is why for the past couple of weeks it has a been a crisp 20ºF nightly at my house but a wopping 40ºF on the hill, far above snowmaking temperatures (especially with humidity, but that's another post).

Last night there was finally a break, and good one at that: Bear Mountain cranked the guns at just about 8pm and ran until early morning...

If new snow wasn't reason enough to head out there, today is day three of Bear's complete overhaul of their park. Everything is now completely different, and the best part is these changes supposedly came from rider feedback. Thanks Bear Mountain!

The first phase of the park change-up was the addition of a rail area. There were no surprises with this decision; Bear is notorious for having the best rail riders in attendance, and with the likes of Joe Sexton, Jake O.E., Jed Anderson, Gabby Maiden, Chris Bradshaw, Zak Hale and others shredding up here today was not any different. Now we all have a thin rail, fat down rail, ledge/shotgun rail, and a double-barrell down rail to play on.


Along with the rail park, Bear put rider progression in mind and expanded the line of boxes, starting thin and going as wide as the dance floor box. The down tube that once lay where the rail park is now was a popular feature, so the park crew switched out the corrguated tube with the down tube to create a tube-wall ride combination. I managed to snap this awesomely amateur shot of the infamous TOBY on said feature.

A pretty neat addition to the park in preparation of the Ashbury team and some Bear team riders coming out to visit is the up-flat box paired with the ledge box, officially dubbed the "Up Flat Box- Side Car with a 30-foot Press Box" via Bear Mountain's website. Only at Bear Mountain I guess...

All in all it was another excellent day on the slopes. If you live locally and haven't visited Bear because one run doesn't seem that fun, do reconsider. Tickets are still discounted, the snow is fresh-like, the features are fun and if those reasons aren't enough than how about getting your riding legs back so you aren't all rubber-legged when the good stuff does open?

Bear Mountain 10.30.09

Recently the Santa Ana winds brought a cold front to Southern California, which for us is the equivalent of the snowstorms everybody else got. Bear started snowmaking late October 27th, and stacked a fleet of up to 70 guns to make the Central Park run off Chair 5 completely rideable.

Bear seems to be playing a different strategy this year, maybe because of the December opening last season. Usually they wait to open the main run from Bear's summit to the bottom, but this year they have minimized to the much smaller Central Park run.

Concentrating their efforts got a thick baselayer of snow over a run with under 50 hours of snowmaking, and has Bear opening before November for the first time in years. Regardless, Southern California must have gotten the memo about Bear opting not to open the main run, because for an opening day lines were pretty tolerable.

Snow conditions were hardpacked manmade snow at around 60ºF, so slightly wet and heavy. I think a lot of folks, myself included, were impressed with the quality and coverage of the snow, all things considered.

Of course, you really don't ride Bear Mountain for the snow; you ride it for the park...

Down tube not pictured

Bear Mountain hauled some fun features up the hill for all skill levels to enjoy. On the left you had two beginner/dance floor boxes (by the end of the day everyone had box spins and switch-ups, newbies included--that's Bear progression right there); on the right you might pursue the line from down tube, to narrow flat box, to flat-down box, to a corrugated tube to wallride transfer--a Bear signature feature and my hands-down favorite for the day.


Bear keeps an area of hikeable features, dubbed the Scene, at the base of Central Park. Today the Scene was sporting one last beginner-friendly flat box or a C-box to finish out your run.

All in all, I had a pretty sweet opening day; here's to a kickass season, and see you all on the slopes!

Snow Summit 4.18.2009 -- Closing Day

Resorts in Colorado are slowly shutting down so it's about time that Southern California called it quits. I managed to get up to Bear for the last day of their season. Bear Mountain closed last Sunday and after a really great week, Snow Summit followed suit today.

I couldn't get any friends to come up with me; either for work shit or because they didn't want to "sully their snowboarding abilities with the crappy leftover snow of a resort's last day". Since I was alone it was a reasonably mellow day... not mellow to where I didn't test some limits and learn some new tricks.


What can I say about the conditions? The picture says it all. The runs were literally just lanes of snow. This is my favorite part of late season shred. Late season goes through phases where it stays icy in the morning and softens later in the day, then it transitions to being soft and nice in the morning and turns to slush water by the end of the day. Today was a slush water kind of day...

Top of one of Summit's Late Season Jib Parks


2 Boarders, 1 Rail

Late season shredding pretty much becomes a jibfest. Summit had two park runs open with a few fun features. They had the big kicker up still and that always hits nice since it's always salted and rarely ridden. Otherwise they had some trademark Bear features: a few rails, a lift tower, a down corrugated tube, etc. HUGE PROPS TO THE PARK STAFF AND LIFTIES FOR KEEPING UP THE FEATURES AND RAMPS ALL DAY! It's awesome that they were still busting ass, even with only a few hours left until closing.

This was my first "closing day". It's cool to have absolutely no regrets. Everything I wanted to try I tried, and occassionally landed. I have to give closing day at Snow Summit two thumbs and two big toes up; today was a perfect day.

Mt. High is open tomorrow and then Southern California's resorts officially close the 2008.2009 season.

Signs I'm an Angry Snowboarder

Now the goal is to shred Mammoth in two weeks... I'm not anywhere near calling my season; there's still snow to shred and I'm on a mission to get to it! I just hope my Swindle can make it through the rock jibbing to come...

Stay tuned.

Snow Summit 4.14.2009

I went up to Snow Summit with my bro today. Bear Mountain closed last Sunday and BBMR (Big Bear Mountain Resorts) is busting ass to keep the two runs at Summit open until April 18th. This is the last week of local shred so I'm trying to get three or four days out of it.

One thing I have started to understand about snowboarding... some aspect of trying to ride is going to go wrong. Sometimes it's equipment, sometimes it's idiocy, today it was both.

I got up early and had to literally drag my brother out of bed. We were fine with time and looking at a nice long day on hill. Just as we were about to get on the freeway he realized he had forgotten his goggles at the house. It didn't set us back much but it did set us back; so we embarked for round 2 of trying to make it up to Bear.

When we pulled in to the parking lot I realized my season pass was still two hours back the way we came, in my house in Palm Springs. Talk about your all-time boneheaded screw-ups. Lucky for me Snow Summit has a policy that gives you one chance to be that stupid... so they gave me a sympathy ticket and things were on track again. Round 3.

View from the parking lot.

This was my brothers first day on a board since he tore his ACL a few years back (ironically, he tore it wrestling a few months before he was set up to go with me to High Cascade). After begging him consistently for a year he felt like his knee was finally stable enough to take a few runs.

Brother G... stoked maybe?

Conditions are pretty dismal at this point. This is where people start to bitch and moan about how there isn't any powder at the end of April in Southern California... but all you really need is a layer of slush just to get that fix, yaddadamean?

Wait... I thought it was called "snow"boarding?

It was pretty funny; when I was getting my sympathy ticket this guy came into the Guest Services office and just started going off. "There is only one high-speed lift," "There are only two runs open," "There are patches of dirt everywhere," "Everything was gated off, and I got stuck at this slow two person chair." This is what trail reports, lift reports and live cams are for... no surprises; in fact these things were probably created so resorts wouldn't have to deal with bullshit like this. It's like the guy wore a blindfold until after he got off the chairlift because he wanted to be surprised!

Complaining about anything at a resort when they are 5 days from closing is like asking Jed Anderson to stop hitting rails. It was pretty obvious the lovely ladies behind the counter weren't empathizing with the douscher so I started making whining baby noises while the guy was mid-complaint to get some smiles; I couldn't just sit there and let them try to be serious when listening to this guy. I'm sure he wanted a ticket a refund, I'm sure he made a big a scene and I'm sure mountain security had to tell him to fuck right off.

So we finally got on the hill and got shred. The bro was doing pretty damn good considering he had ACL injury that he "re-habbed wrong." We took a couple of laps through Upper Westridge to hit the park but G wasn't about re-injuring his knee first day out so we just had some fun running laps, doing butters and spins in the flats; basically we just enjoyed the fact there was snow.

Remember how I said something always goes wrong? G managed to drop his goggles going from the car to the bathroom and I'm thinking the second they hit the ground they got swooped up (aka stolen). This pretty much ended the day, so we headed to this collection of giant snow boulders I had seen. One was shaped like a tank and looked pretty fun, so I threw some snow for a "ramp" and got to work.


After a few tries an instructor came and told me that she tried to play in the snow boulders earlier and the lifties called her in to Ski Patrol. I just bought my pass for 09.10 so I'm not looking for trouble before then; I took a few shots and headed home. Honestly though, what liftie is that serious about his job this close to end-of-season? This dude's not even going to have a job in 5 days, might as well loosen up a little... god forbid I use my SNOWboard to jib SNOW.

While we were getting our gear off some nasty weather started setting in. It really won't matter if it snowed or not but the idea of things getting refreshed as Summit finishes out the last week sounds nice. We managed to get this bitching picture of the storm on the way back... maybe this should be the logo image: