Big Bear Lake and Big bear City have had snow showers all morning. They received four inches of snow overnight with another in accumulating today. Road conditions are R2, no chains on four wheel drive vehicles. The roads are slushy today, but that will freeze up as temperatures dip to around sixteen degrees tonight. Please drive cautiously. Here’s a map of road conditions. Once it loads from Google, click on the icons to see conditions as of 11:30 AM today.
Roads Conditions Map
This is just the Parking Lot!
A good mid-level trail is Fish Creek Trail, used as a trailhead for San Gorgonio Peak Hikers. We went into the wilderness for a Day Hike.
You can drive all the way in to the Fish Creek area with your Adventure Pass, but you’ll also need a free Wilderness Pass from the Discovery Center, if you want to hike.
From Big Bear, Fish Creek is down Hwy 38 beyond Onyx Summit; at the top of the uphill passing lane before the Barton Flats Campground. The sign is marked well, but at a dangerous left turn. You would be better to pull to the right and prepare for a U-Turn.
The road is dirt and rocks for the next 10 miles. Many places are one-lane. Take your time. Enjoy the traffic. Low profile vehicles are not recommended. The view will make up for the rocky road.
Fish Creek Trailhead
The trail heads downhill at the beginning. This is unusual, as everyone knows, ALL California trails go UP!
A short hop off the trail is this lovely meadow. We had a short break and watched the birds chasing after insects.
Fish Creek Meadow
When you reach this sign, you may follow down the Aspen Grove trail or head up.
Aspen Grove Trail Crossing
We headed up. AH! There IS water in Southern California!
Fish Creek Trail Crossing
Fish Creek Trail Elderberries
Those Elderberries were ALMOST ripe! Sure look tasty.
You have a choice at this sign. The Fish Creek Camp is just below in a lovely ravine. If you’re not feeling “broken in”, you may want to spend the night there.
Fish Creek Saddle Sign
From here on, the trail gets drier and steeper. Fish Creek Saddle is many hikers’ goal for the first day. Some will continue over the saddle to Dry Lake. Directly in front is Onyx Peak. Fish Creek Camp is just down the ravine in the trees.
Fish Creek Camp
We hit our “Altitude” and sat down at a point off the trail for our turnaround break. You can just see the 38 between the 2 cloud shadows. Wildhorse Canyon is above. Onyx Peak is behind the trees to the right.
View looking North at Hwy 38 and Wildhorse Trail
These are the coordinates of our resting place:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=217034181853490561302.0004ac34a82ab3b858474
Big Bear's Hummingbirds
Can you imagine a concert by over a million traveling singers? Catch a performance any spring or summer morning in the National Forest surrounding Big Bear CA. Migrating songbirds stop here and rest in our trees, meadows, and stream banks. Some stay to nest and spend the summer, while others continue north. These migrants return to Mexico, Central and South America in the fall. This group includes orioles, hummingbirds, swallows, thrushes, warblers, vireos and tanagers.
Recently, spring has grown noticeably quieter. The number of migrating birds has declined, due to the destruction of natural habitat and breeding grounds, along migratory routes, and in wintering areas. This National Forest in Big Bear is just one stop on the world tour. It’s important to identify and protect those areas used by birds.
The best place to watch the migrating birds is along streams and other areas with lots of plants and insects. Thurman Flats Picnic Area is a well known resting area. Refer to the Birds of the San Bernardino National Forest for lists of commonly found species. Bird walks are given throughout the year by the San Bernardino Audubon Society.
Thurman Flats Directions: Take Highway 38 out of Big Bear. Thurman Flats is on the left once you get to the bottom of the mountain.
More About Hummingbirds:
San Bernardino National Forest
Mount San Gorgonio
The San Bernardino National Forest is composed of four mountain ranges: the San Bernardino Mountains, the San Jacinto Mountains, the Santa Rosa Mountains, and the traverse range of the San Gabriel Mountains. It has had a long history of human use for fish, game, and plants beginning with early cultures and Native Americans. Ever since California became part of the United States in 1848, the mountains have been used for logging, a source of water for drinking and orchard irrigation, recreation of all sorts, and the site of Southern California’s biggest gold rush. Today, the Forest Service employs archeologists and anthropologists to find, record, and protect the prehistoric and historic sites.
Prehistoric Past
The mountains of the San Bernardino National Forest were used by Native Americans for thousands of years before the arrival of Euroamericans, as far back as 8,000 years ago. Artifacts include stone tools, bedrock milling features and metates (used to process various seeds), stone chips and broken pottery. Early groups used large spears and presumably hunted large game. Between 1500 and 2000 years ago, they were displaced by arrivals from the Great Basin—the ancestors of the Serrano and Cahuilla peoples. The San Bernardino Mountains were the home of the Serrano, and the San Jacinto Mountains were home to the Cahuilla. The two groups were related by language and shared a common set of customs and they often intermarried. When the Europeans arrived in the early 1600’s, the Serrano and Cahuilla occupied permanent villages at the base of the mountains, but would travel into the mountains in the warm months to gather nuts and seeds. The mountains are filled with archaeological sites, such as mortars located in bedrock outcrops and quarry sites where native stone was gathered to make tools.
Today the Serrano and Cahuilla live on eleven different reservations that surround the San Bernardino National Forest. An exhibit at Cahuilla Tewanet Interpretive Site provides an opportunity to see some of the plants that were used for various purposes by the Native Americans.
Bill Holcomb, Gold Miner
Gold Rush
Within weeks of an 1860 discovery of a gold-bearing quartz deposit, hundreds of miners were living in newly constructed mining camps in Holcomb Valley. They first panned for gold in the stream bottoms and alluvial deposits on the valley floor. The remains of this type of mining are identified by round pits, many of which can be seen along Polique Canyon Road and eastward across the valley. Once these placer workings were exhausted, the miners’ efforts turned to the gold bearing quartz ore. Huge boilers were brought to the valley to run stamp-mills. Some concrete foundations of the stamp mills and steam boilers still remain. Gold continued to be mined until the early part of the 1900s. Early mining camps are identified by the deposits of old cans, broken ceramics and glass bottles, which help archaeologists learn more about the people living at the camps.
Sawmill in the San Bernardino Mountains
Logging
During the last half of the nineteenth century, the mountains were used for their timber. Logging was such an integral part of mountain life during the last half of thelate 1800’s that numerous, privately owned mills were built throughout the San Bernardino Mountains. A railroad was constructed near what is now Fredalba along Highway 330 to transport the newly cut logs to the mountain top sawmills. Nearly the entire western half of the San Bernardino Mountains were logged, and today many of the trees are second growth. Although they appear large, the pine trees in that part of the Forest are generally less than 150 years old.
Equipment from Pan Hotsprings
Old Miner's Days - Burro Races
From the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Big Bear Lake, the Old Miners’ Association wants you.
That’s the clarion call to arms by the Old Miners’ Parade Committee – and Noel and Katherine Blanc, longtime residents of the mountain resort community answered.
Blanc, the voice of Warner Bros’ most famous cartoon characters for generations and his wife, Kat, artist, sculptor and author of “The Boy Who Conquered Everest,” about Big Bear’s own Jordon Romero, eagerly accepted the challenge to be grand marshals for the Old Miner’s Big Bear Heritage Parade on Saturday, July 23, and be the capstone to this year’s parade goal of being bold and local – reminiscent of its early days.
The famous couple said they were ready to shoulder the challenge of supporting the committee’s efforts to quickly recruit parade participants on short notice, and then put on a show the Big Bear Valley would long remember. He thought the Old Miners’ Association moving the parade to Saturday will enable visitors to spend the weekend enjoying the mountain, especially participating in a full slate of activities taking place over the weekend. Old Miners’ events begin Friday evening at the Elks Lodge with a musical tribute to the military; and then following the parade on Saturday, there will be a carnival and outhouse races in Bartlett’s Parking Lot. Sunday begins four days of burro relays and events, and reigniting one the legendary ingredients of Old Miners’ Association events.
Jim Hart, first-time parade chairman, has tackled the job with energy and optimism, stoked by years in Santa Fe Springs, where as a firefighter he was heavily involved in that community’s annual parade. “Right now,” he said, “we need to get applications out and returned as quickly as possible so we can stage the parade entrants and really be worthy of the 1st Marine Division Band. Even though we have deliberately truncated the parade for spectators and entrants (Big Bear Boulevard, Pine Knot Avenue and Village Drive) there are dozens of details that need immediate attention to make the parade the success the city council desires. We have a lot of Ts to cross and Is to dot, but we’re confident we can do it . . . and we need more volunteers.”
The parade got its final go-ahead on June 15 from the Planning Commission, and Blanc and his wife’s enthusiasm was echoed throughout the Valley’s citizenry and service organizations that have long histories of creating floats and entries that reflect the area’s mining history.
“The excitement among everyone is there,” said Bill Wilson, parade committee member, “but time is the factor we can’t alter, so we’re counting on people stepping up to make this a reality.”
“It’s important,” added Rocky McAlister, committee member, “we live up to the city council’s faith in us, and despite the obstacle of time, the people of Big Bear can climb this mountain just like Jordan did Everest. And the addition of Noel and Kat is like a shot in the arm.”
To enter the parade, download the application from oldminers.org and email to jameshart@charter.not. To volunteer, call OMA at (909) 584-5949. Media Contact: Rocky McAlister – 909-633-0438 or wprr1@verizon.net
More Old Miner’s Days
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