Snow Summit Mountain Bike Park

Snow Summit Mountain Biking Trails

I just got back from an afternoon mountain biking session at Snow Summit and I was extremely impressed.  The park opened this year, so there wasn’t a lot of information about it online. The lift tickets for the afternoon 1pm-5pm session are very reasonably priced at 22$. If you have to rent a bike, this is where they’re going to hit your wallet. Bike rentals start at 59$, not including the 10$ damage waiver.  The rental bikes are higher end Trek XC models with full suspension. We brought our own bikes, so it wasn’t an issue for us anyway.

The lift takes approximately 10 minutes to reach the Summit. Your bike rides up the mountain on a separate lift from a metal hanger. Our first run of the day started on the easy fire road trail 2N10. This trail is a wide double lane fire road with no obstacles or rocks. We skipped the turnout for the Coyote Trail that went back to the lift and headed down the Pine Nut Trail instead. I would call Pine Nut an intermediate trail. It was mostly single track with  quite a few small obstacles. A fairly novice rider could manage this trail is they were in good shape and not too clumsy. This route required a small amount of uphill riding, which is much harder at 10,000 feet above sea level.  I definitely wouldn't take my mom down Pine Nut. From the bottom of the trail, there is a 2.5 mile ride back through town on Big Bear Blvd to the resort. I wasn't expecting this, but the lake is beautiful in the summer and it was a fun ride. This would have been a good last run of the day to cool down. This run took up 90 minutes with a few small breaks in the middle for picture taking.

My second trail of the day was the upper/intermediate Westridge Trail. This trail was a fairly steep single track with several  steep S turns, jumps, bumps and rocky sections. I would not recommend tackling this trail without pads. I actually had to walk by bike past the steepest S turn.  This trail links up directly with the resort. It was a hair-raising 20 minute ride down the mountain. 

I definitely plan on hitting Snow Summit again this season for another mountain biking session.  They have plans to expand the number of trails next year. Earlier this month, the website showed a planned green trail that would lead directly to the lifts, but it wasn't open today.  I didn't have the guts to tackle the "black" Miracle Mile Trail on the front of the mountain. Based on the difficulty of the blue, it was probably the right decision given the fact that I didn’t have pads.

 The summer website for Snow Summit can be tough to find online, so here is the link. Snow Summit is located at 880 Summit Blvd. In Big Bear Lake,  California. They are open every day this summer from 9am-5pm. Limited hours start in September. 

Snow Summit Mountain Biking Park. from john fakor on Vimeo.

Snow Summit Mountain Biking Fire Road Trail Map