Lost ski areaCaliforniaSan Bernardino MountainsSouthwest
Snow Forest
Ran 1938–1992. A small ski hill on the west side of Big Bear Valley, first known as Lynn Hill, home to Big Bear's first chairlift and closed for good by 1992.
Overview
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Imagery: USGS The National Map · Terrain: Mapzen, USGS and others
Counting who skied it…
Timeline
7 events · swipe
Memories
Skied Snow Forest, or worked there?
Tell us what you remember, or what this page has wrong. Memories show here, credited to you, after we read them; facts are checked against a source before they change a figure.
Lost near Snow Forest
The closest other lost ski areas, as the crow flies.
- 1945–2007 · 9.3 mi away · CaliforniaA ski hill at Green Valley Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains that opened as the Green Valley Lake Snow Bowl in 1945 and closed after the 2007 Slide Fire.
- 1951–2001 · 56.8 mi away · CaliforniaA small ski area on the Angeles Crest Highway in the San Gabriel Mountains, known for its single chair, that ran from the early 1950s until an avalanche in 2001.
- 1941–1994 · 192.7 mi away · CaliforniaA ski area in Wolverton Meadow in Sequoia National Park whose lifts ran every winter from 1941–42 until they were taken out in 1994.
History
Written by aurora.ski from the 5 pages below, each sentence numbered to its sources.
Judge Clifford R. Lynn helped form the Big Bear Sports District in 1934 to build up winter sports in the valley. KBHR dates the Lynn Sling Lift on this hill to 1938. In 1949 a chairlift named for Lynn went up on Lynn Hill, the first chairlift in Big Bear; KBHR describes it as a single chair about 3,000 feet long.1,2,4
Dave and Dan Platus bought the hill in April 1963 and renamed it Snow Forest. It changed hands in 1977 and again in 1980, when Bob Booth bought it, and the old Lynn chair was taken down in 1981. Trail maps survive from 1981, 1985 and 1986. Sources differ on the end: the Historical Society says Snow Forest closed in 1973, reopened under Booth in the early 1980s and closed again late in that decade, while the California Ski Library gives 1992 as the year it closed for good.1,2,5
TodayThe land has gone back to the National Forest, and the old slopes draw crowds of unofficial snow players, with parking tickets common. (2026)1,3
Timeline
- 1938Lynn Sling Lift opens on the hill4
- 1949Clifford Lynn chairlift built, the first chairlift in Big Bear1,2
- 1963Platus brothers buy Lynn Hill and rename it Snow Forest1,2
- 1973Snow Forest closes, per the Historical Society1
- 1980Bob Booth buys the area and later reopens it1,2
- 1981The original Lynn chairlift is removed2
- 1992Snow Forest closes permanently, per the California Ski Library2
Sources for this history (5)
- 1Big Bear Valley Historical Society · Winter Sports
- 2California Ski Library · Southern California Ski History Timeline
- 3The Hungry Mountaineer · Big Bear Lake Snow Play
- 4KBHR Big Bear News · Winter Sports in the San Bernardino Mountains (November 29, 2014)
- 5Skimap.org · Snow Forest
Photos
No photographs of Snow Forest we may republish yet
Its old photos and trail maps live on the sites that collected them, and Google finds the rest.
Memories
What skiers remember of Snow Forest, in their own words.
Facts
Location
34.2334° N · 116.9144° W · California · San Bernardino Mountains
OpenSkiMap lists it as abandoned.
Years operated
1938–1992
Closed after the 1992 season. It stays here as part of the record of U.S. ski areas.
No figures from its operating years are collected yet.
Terrain contours: USGS 3D Elevation Program, public domain