Big Bear Lake—now with more potholes, dog poop, and bald eagle paparazzi: A guide to Big Bear Lake tourism for those who want to get away from the other tourists.
Welcome to Big Bear Lake, California — where nature meets neglect, and adventure is just a broken sled away.
Wintertime? Magical. Fresh snowfall. Jeffrey pines covered in a twinkling blanket of snow. Until the snowstorm stops, the highways are plowed and every influencer from Santa Monica drives to the southern California mountains in their Rivean trucks. Big Bear Lake tourism is at its peak between December and late February. And every Instagram influencer knows it. Big Bear Lake sees nearly three million tourists each year. If you visit during the Christmas holiday, it may seem like they are all driving up Highway 330 in front of you on the same day. Yet, nobody remembered to pack the tire chains! And does that content creator millennial over there taking a selfie with a dirty snow berm even know if his Tesla is all-wheel-drive or not? Probably not.
Are you looking to avoid crowds, Big Bear Lake style, by that I mean, not drive as far as Mammoth Lakes to experience mountain goodness?
If your definition of “magical” includes stepping over a graveyard of cracked plastic sleds, twisted like modern art installations in the snowbanks, then you are going to love this weekend trip to Big Bear Lake! Are you ready to step off the beaten path yet and into the snowy forest with a local hiking guide? Are you ready to snowshoe your way back to sanity? Three million tourists visit Big Bear Lake each year because they want to leave the concrete jungle of the city and breathe crisp, clean mountain air. It’s not crisp, clean mountain air if some brand ambassador from Los Feliz just vaped weed into my freshly pine-smelling forest.
Big Bear Lake tourism; The good, the bad, and the just weird
But calm down, Karen, you came to Big Bear Lake for some forest zen and maybe some mountain sledding time with the family. There are areas you can take your family sledding and for snowplay that are not on the side of a mountain highway, as logging trucks scream by at 55 miles per hour. Yes, Big Bear Lake tourism, especially in the snowy months, means snowy mountains packed with snowplayers in North Face hoodies like colorful ants on every speck of snow. However, you can book a snowy forest family adventure with a local guide! Leave the crowds behind you. A local outdoor guide can take you and your family to a scenic spot in the forest away 
from other tourists and the dirty diapers they leave behind in the fresh snow. Nothing screams holiday joy like a busted toboggan with someone’s kid still crying on it. Book a snowplay experience through The Hungry Mountaineer and step away from the crowds and back into nature.
Your outdoor guide will show you where to park so you don’t get a $400 ticket. She will show you where your dog can frolic off-leash in fresh snow. She may even bring hot chocolate or Baileys and coffee (At an additional price). If it’s the holiday season, she may even have delicious, freshly baked Christmas cookies to add on to any experience! When you book an outdoor adventure tour with Big Bear Lake’s premier outdoor guide, you get a high-quality local wilderness guide with thousands of five-star reviews.
Escape Los Angeles weekend
According to every big-budget Hollywood movie, Los Angeles is the land of palm trees, sunsets over the Pacific Ocean and Hollywood stars. And maybe that homeless man with a needle in his neck over there. Are you ready for an escape Los Angeles weekend yet? Once the sunshine comes out from behind that June gloom, Los Angeles suburbs are a hot and sweaty concert jungle most Angelenos can’t wait to escape on Friday afternoon. Right after Memorial Day weekend, the concrete jungle starts to swelter and stink from all those homeless encampments and garbage lining city streets. Are you ready to escape to the alpine forests of Big Bear Lake yet?
Summertime in Big Bear Lake, oh, the hiking is incredible. Breathe in that crisp mountain air — right through your mouth because your nose is busy dodging the aroma of blue dog poop bags that people lovingly bagged up… and then chucked into the forest like eco-conscious grenades. You can take the Angelenos to the forest, but you can’t, it seems, get them to clean up after themselves.
Pack your Tesla; Big Bear Lake tourism is waiting at 7,000 feet!
Potholes? Big Bear doesn’t have potholes — it has mini canyons. We don’t measure road damage in inches here; we use GPS coordinates. And good luck navigating them when 200 weekend warriors show up in their Teslas, blissfully unaware that there’s only one charging station in town and it’s located behind a du
mpster next to the world’s angriest squirrel. If you book an Airbnb in Big Bear Lake and you are showing up in your Model X for the love of God, make sure your vacation rental includes an EV charging station! Check out this adorable A-frame cabin in the forest with outdoor gazebo space, eco-friendly, EV charging station, and yes, it’s even dog-friendly!
Big Bear; Bald eagles, bros and burros
Speaking of tourists, every local has the joy of being asked 50 times a day, “Where are Jackie and Shadow, the bald eagles?” They’re wild, Sharon. They don’t have a schedule. If Jackie and Shadow had a PR team, they’d have burned out years ago.
Oh, and shoutout to the wild burros who just casually stroll down Highway 38 like they own the place — because they kinda do. Jeep owners are out here playing daily games of “Avoid the Burros, the Potholes, and Existential Dread” before even finishing their morning coffee. That’s all part of Big Bear life. No, the bears are really not an issue for locals. But the donkeys, now those jackasses always know when trash day is and they make a mess of most neighborhoods.
Why Big Bear Lake Is the Wild West of Tourism
We’re only two hours from Los Angeles, making Big Bear Lake an easy weekend getaway for all those Angelenos. The drive used to be a beautiful winding road up Highway 330 through an alpine forest. Until last autumn, when someone with the IQ of warm toast decided to set Highway 330 on fire. But does that stop the lifted Cybertruck bros from launching their Monster Energy cans into the forest at 70 MPH? Absolutely not. As much as we may hate to admit it, we all live in southern California and most of the people who live here treat this state like a toilet. Why anyone would want to visit such a wonderful forest
just to trash it with graffiti and throw their Big Mac bags out the window of their truck, I will never understand. Living and working in a tourist town is not easy for the 30,000 souls who call Big Bear Lake home (And 200 donkeys)
But hey — we finally got a Tractor Supply, so things are really turning around. You can now buy goat feed, a pellet gun, and a rustic “Welcome Y’all” sign all in one trip. Peak civilization.
So come on up to Big Bear Lake — where the mountains are beautiful, the wildlife is confused, and the roads are as broken as your New Year’s resolutions.
But how I really experience off-the-beaten-path Big Bear?
If dodging Teslas, feral sleds, and politely explaining to your 37th tourist that Jackie the bald eagle is NOT on Instagram Live has you rethinking your life choices, there is a better way.
Discover the real Big Bear Lake — broken sleds, burros, and bald eagle paparazzi. Escape the crowds with The Hungry Mountaineer’s hiking and Jeep tours. Let The Hungry Mountaineer lead
you far from the hordes of “Citi-its” who think hiking means wearing brand-new HOKAs to Starbucks.
We offer off-the-beaten-path hiking adventures for people who want actual wilderness — the kind where there’s no Wi-Fi, no dog poop bag confetti, and the only influencers around are chipmunks with attitude. This is real Big Bear Lake tourism, folks!
Or maybe you’d rather stay off your feet and let a Hungry Mountaineer Jeep Tour rattle you into inner peace (or at least mild vertigo) as we bounce you over roads too rugged for even the most determined Cybertruck bro. Bonus: our Jeeps know how to share the road with wild burros. When it comes to things to do in Big Bear Lake, a Jeep tour to see the old ghost town of Belleville is a fun and fantastic way to spend a springtime morning. This is a great way to avoid crowds at Big Bear Lake.
Things to do in Big Bear: Besides blaming the tourists for everything,
We have world-class hiking, stunning mountain bike trails, and there is always stalking our resident bald eagles from a boat out on the lake. Big Bear Lake tourism has it all! So come on — escape the chaos, dodge the selfie sticks, and experience the real Big Bear: the one behind the ridgelines, beneath the pines, and far from that guy blaring EDM from his Bluetooth speaker at the trailhead.
