Blogs from Big Bear Lake, California, United States, North America

Two days in one. We last left our intrepid hero teetering on the precipice of the mighty, but what might seem to others as trifling, task of picking his car up from MGM Grand and driving back to his hotel. Stirring stuff, I hear you murmur resignedly to yourselves. As it turns out, it wasn't that hard at all. Who knew? It was impossible not to fall foul of the what I have decided must be called Casino-Designers Revenge, although what they have to be vengeful about I don't know. I'm sure they are paid handsomely for their efforts. Suffice it to say that I was meandering around for 30 mins in MGM Grand looking for the Dollar car rental desk, asking half a dozen people who had never heard of it. (It turns out it's ... read more

Today was our first day of skiing in Big Bear (and my first day of skiing ever!). As we'd already collected our lift and equipment passes yesterday afternoon we were able to skip the lines and go straight to collect our ski equipment (and in Joel’s case board equipment). We'd arrived early (about 8.15am) so we had an hour and a half before our lessons started. We grabbed a coffee (worse one ever) and watched the people already on the runs. Joel was booked for Beyond Beginner Ride however somehow (after having to swap meeting locations a couple of times) ended up in the Guaran Ride Beginner (entry level). Darren, Dan and I were booked in the Guaran Ski Beginner - which was great value - $79 (holiday prices) for 4 hours of instruction (2 hours ... read more

Christmas morning! Yay - my first white Christmas! The day started a little slow - we all slept in until about 8.30am, - quite a sleep-in given its Christmas morning. Darren made us all scrambled eggs for breakfast and the boys gave me a cute Christmas present - a snowman Pandora charm, very cute! We left the house at about 10.30am and drove over to the other side of the lake so i could take some photos of the lake with Snow Summit snow fields as a backdrop to lake front houses - very pretty (though a lot of glare at this time of day). The lake had iced over in parts and there were sheets of ice cracking and making an awesome shattering noise as the lake water lapped up onto the boat ramps. The ... read more

Today is our first (full day) in Big Bear. Dan was going to wake me up early (5am) but i slept through until Darren woke me at about 7.15am (though Dan claims he was awake at 5am but it was 'too dark' to play in the snow so he decided not to wake me). After breakfast the boys and I attempted to build a snow man. Dan was using a shovel but even so we couldn't seem to create the perfect snow man shape - ours looked like a volcano. Surprisingly you could sit and kneel in the snow (with snow pants) and it wasn't that cold! Darren ended up bringing two left hand snow gloves from Perth so he ducked off to Kmart (with instructions to also buy red food colouring for our volcano) whilst ... read more

Big Bear Snowboarding Adventure. A group of us decided to go up to Big Bear for the weekend. A trip that usually takes 2 hours turned into 6 hours because of a terrible storm. The had to take the longest way up the mountain since roads were closed and ended up having to help push people in cars up the mountain. When we finally got there we stayed in a hostel that sadly barely had heat, BRRR!! 4am, time to go to sleep to get up a 8 for the slopes. a few of us learned and a few of us were already snowboarding pros. The weekend was full of learning pains (literally) and moments of epiphanies when snowboarding finally made sense..I'm hooked. ... read more

Big Bear Lake. A 5.5 hour road trip from Phoenix seemed worth it to capture that snowy holiday feel that just seems to feel right this time of year. We were lucky enough to find some available time in the timeshare location just a mile from the lifts in Big Bear City. The large snow storm expected was a surprise we heard just a couple days prior to our drive out. Clear roads and sunshine escorted us up to lofty elevation of 7000 feet. Our first morning brought snow flakes and driving winds that nearly shut the small town down and gave us a good reason to stay inside the majority of the day sipping cocoa. Sunshine the next day lured us to the mountains at SUMMIT where we enjoyed a perfect day of light powder ... read more