Just an update for some of you folks.

Bear Valley is sold. The company that bought it is planning to develop on land purchased and zoned in 1978 for an onsite village/housing....alla kirkwood.

On top of that they are planning to retrofit and replace lifts and upgrade other parts of the mountain...can we say bye bye hibernation nap time lift.

Just thought I'd update you guys. I am sure it's going to be a 5 year process but hey...we have something to look forward too.....and some bad stuff too.

I'm sure this mean BYEBYE to bears normally cheap lift tickets.

now time to start looking for money...I want to buy a couple onsite homes. One for investment...one for me.

 

It's still early enough that you can find cheap season passes to other resorts...

 

I've got a season pass for next season at bear...got like 4/5 days in on it last year....so 5 more and it's paid off.

I'll probably spend some time at kirkwood and sugarbowl next season as well. Maybe mammoth if I'm feeling good.

 

That will kick *** if they can speed up some of those lifts. Hopefully they don't add some new lifts on the home run side so we still have that fun little area to go play in.

 

Thats good news about the lift cause going up that thing sucks when its all snowy and windy blowing in your face... thing just takes daaaaayyss. But I hope lift prices don't go up too much, I can't afford going up frequently to other resorts but Bears prices let me get in plenty of days.

 

I hope they never put lifts in on homerun.

lifts mean maps...maps and lifts mean easier access with more people knowing about it. That means more lines...that mean less fresh lines for me.

I'd rather save up and get a snowmobile...ride those lines all day.

 

yeah, Ray, i just checked my email & found out that Dundee bought our beloved resort. i'm more disappointed than stoked. i'd much rather endure the 12-15 minute ride up w/ really UNCROWDED slopes even on weekends/holidays, when compared to others. the planned improvements will definitely bring buttloads more folks out that way. i'm li'l bummed b/c i know it'll probably lose its Ma&Pop, mellow kinda vibe. but, hey, we'll have to see how things play out.

btw, wassup...Jeff & Justin!

 

no joke...totally agree.

lots of people wonder why I ride there instead of tahoe....it's less crowded...on holidays you don't have to sit in traffic for 9 hours. There are almost never lift lines...etc.

It's worth janky lifts to be able to ride all day non stop and find fresh powder DAYS not hours after a storm. I'm hoping they don't develop out into my spots...long as they stay away from that I'm ok....I'll just get less runs...but better runs in more often. If it gets bad enough I'm buying 2 snow mobiles.

 

I couldn't agree more. I grew up in Modesto and loved Bear. When I went to Davis, I was privied to frequenting the Tahoe resorts several times/wk. However, I still like Bear b/c of what you said above.

 

Wassup Cliff. Yea, I hope Bear doesn't get like that. It's still a little out of the way for some people to wanna drive over there. Most people go to Tahoe for the convience of the location.

 

Where is bear valley?

Im a kirkwood season pass holder

 

coming down from kirkwood you'd make a left on highway 49...take it to 4..make another left...head strait up about an hour.

coming from the bay area you go up past tracy to the 99 to the 4 east. Take the 4 east all the way up.

It's like 3 hours from the bay. I've done it in 2. but I wouldn't recommend attempting to do that.


i've actually driven from our house in arnold to kirkwood to ride. it's like maybe 2 hours.

 

to add onto what OneManArmy said:

BearValley is basically due south of the Wood, maybe just a hair more west though. It's just under 2 hours fr: Stockton. Hwy 4 runs pretty much parallel to Hwy 88 as both roads climb into the Sierras. But Hwy 4 doesn't cut through any tight mountain passes/spurs, so ,unlike Hwy 88, it's pretty much never ever closed due to avy danger.