Tales of Big Bear Lake CA

Big Bear Lake has always been know for it's fishing.

Teacher Lost at the Mantle

It was a strange case of the woman school teacher who went down into the canyon fishing with Mrs. Thomas. Now it is so easy for two persons to get separated under these circumstances without strict rules. Intent on your line in the semi-light you look up and really can’t tell if your pardner is above or below you. You are confused and the shadows are no help. You go up, then you come back lower down and yell.

Mrs. Thomas gave up. Went up the climb to the road and to town for help. Now dark. Men with lanterns dropped into the canyon and kept on down six miles to the mantle. There was the teacher; she could go no farther and never realized the water came from the Dam and the way home.

The creek could tell many hair-raising stories but the best is Stephen Chalmer’s, the “Affair of the Gallow Tree”, a fine book.

The Big Bear Lake CA Chamber of Commerce

Sixteen Lost 36 Hours

A near-tragic party was the lost sixteen. The Chamber of Commerce hired a secretary and guide to help the guests for some years around the 1920’s. This was an outsider and he had to pick up the geography from others.

On this all-day trip they took the big boat at eight and were landed at the Dam, to be back there at four. Up the steep three mile trail to Bluff Lake they climbed, then out about a mile more to the “Lookout” to the west. From here you see the lower Valley of Redlands, San Bernardino, etc. and a fine view. They had lunch and lingered, but it began to mist and was a near rain when they reached Bluff Lake again. Movements ended here. Never see again for 28 hours; you think it couldn’t be? Well, it’s possible you could do the same.

The big boat waited, came back up the lake and went down again, but no passengers. Then came the alarm.

My camp phone rang between seven and eight, a dark night. Lunde took his car with flashlights and lanterns four of us beat it to Bluff Lake. We examined the heel -marks, but few headed out. At the foot of the meadow were some logs across but none showed where the high heels had jumped over. Strange! What was this mystery?

So Andrew went all the way back to the Village for food and blankets if we were to be out all night. The horsemen with guns to attract came up the Castle Rock Trail but added no news. The smell of smoke came not at all. Before midnight a cabin owner came to our fire and said he saw sixteen going out in two groups at the end of the meadow in the rain. Scant news was this to us.

To the Village in the morning and very sure the crowd would be back and the hunt over. Not so! No news of them in the night and now it really did look serious; a general meeting was held at my office. Cars and riders were sent in different directions, some now maintaining the lost must have gone into the Santa Ana. All the results were the same.

By afternoon some of us were confident they could be in only one place – Bear Creek. How they arrived there, we had no guess. But it just had to be so. Three men, of whom Ted Tidwell was the leader, volunteered to go down Bear Creek; down the stream to Cork Screw, then over the Edison Trail to a meeting with the Clarke Trail and to the later ranch if found there, or could get them there, then cars would be sent for them. With a few sandwiches they started.

Pine Knot Lodge was one of Big Bear Lake's earliest lodges.

About five o’clock Guy Barry drove Alden and me, with milk and food from P.K. (Pine Knot) Lodge clear around the lake as, of course, no bridge over the new Dam, to the trail going down to the creek. We waited. Dad had said they were in the canyon and coming up. Dusk came; Barry went to the river with Norman Palmer (our banker) but no news.

Darkness settled down and we built a fire. Where were the lost ones. At long last, about eight, faint sounds could be heard as they climbed the steep trail – then appeared groups of twos and threes. Supported by the three men of the sixteen. A minute for food and cars took them to camp and bed. Ted said he had to carry some of the women across the stream.

Meeting two younger girls from my own camp, he asked a fisherman to take them to the (Dam) keeper’s phone to spread the good news.

Now this is the way they missed the trail. Turning slightly west at the foot of Bluff Lake meadow they struck a trail turning west and more west, and leaving its faint path they dropped into a canyon – Siberia Creek. Few have ever seen it. It has five dams ten to fifteen feet high, and in what distance I can not say – perhaps a mile. Once over the first dam, or second, they were trapped. Night came and they camped. Food was only a little coffee.

The next day they finished the dams and canyon coming out of the mass of boulders, the worst wash I have seen. Then meeting the Edison trail, they had the sense to come north and came to Cork Screw. However, had they known it, an almost level trail the other way would have landed them at Clarke’s Ranch and help home. Their walk up Bear Creek on an empty stomach must have been a terrible ordeal, and lucky the rescue party were there to help. We can only guess at the mental worry of these, the lost sixteen.

Bluff Lake in the mountains above Big Bear.