Snow has been slow to arrive in Big Bear this year, but the long-term forecast calls for big changes.

Bear Mountain resort in Big Bear is adding its first new chair lift in 30 years, a six-seat, high-speed lift that will carry its first customers Thursday.

The new Midway lift (also known as Chair 5) holds up to six skiers at a time. Its features include a short conveyor belt that carries skiers and boarders to the spots where the lift will pick them up for a ride of about 2,500 feet.

“This is our bright, shiny, new toy for the season,” said Mark Burnett, the resort’s vice president for facilities, at a recent test run.

Though Bear Mountain opened chairlifts 7 and 9 for the season Dec. 13, management waited until later in the month before opening up the Midway lift, hoping for more snow that has yet to arrive. Skiers can get updates on Big Bear weather, trails and lifts here.

Meanwhile, Alterra Mountain Co., the company behind Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, Snow Valley and several of the largest winter resorts in the West, continues to inch forward on a bigger idea: linking Bear Mountain and Snow Summit with a pair of lifts and other amenities. This would allow skiers and boarders to move back and forth between resorts without driving or boarding a shuttle bus.

Under the plan — still under review by the U.S. Forest Service — the resorts would build a pair of “Big Bear Connect” lifts. To make the plan work, the two ski operations (together known as Big Bear Mountain Resort) would need to add about 300 acres to the nearly 1,500 acres they use now under permits from the Forest Service.

The Forest Service, which owns the land, began gathering public input on the proposed expansion plan in 2023.

“We are in the analysis phase,” U.S. Forest Service Mountain Resorts program manager Janelle Walker said, confirming that the project is still moving forward. She said “we had additional analysis that was needed, and we are planning to get the Draft Environmental Assessment out to the public in spring 2025.” Even after approval, resort officials noted, the project could take years to complete.

In the meantime, skiers and boarders have the new lift at Bear Mountain’s to try out.

How the new lift works

Bear Mountain officials said they’ve spent about $10.2 million on the new Midway lift, which replaces the now-departed chairlifts 1, 2 and 5 in the resort’s central base area.

Designed by the lift specialist company Leitner-Poma, it is expected to carry passengers 2,494 feet upslope in as little as 2.5 minutes. The lift will be able to carry as many as 3,200 people per hour, resort officials say.

“Now all we need is the snow,” said Burnett.

The construction, which began in May, included helicopters carrying a dozen towers to their new places on the slopes, while other workers dug a vast hole to hold the lift’s many moving and stationary parts at the base of the mountain.

Bear Mountain, known for its terrain parks and half-pipes, has operated under various names in the San Bernardino National Forest since the 1940s. For many years, the resort has relied heavily on artificial snow-making, attracting many beginner and intermediate skiers and snowboarders.

Burnett estimated that in the last eight years, management has invested $30 million in improvements to Bear Mountain, with further investment at Snow Summit and Snow Valley.

How Bear Mountain and Snow Summit could link together

Like many ski resorts, those in Big Bear include large chunks of U.S. Forest Service land, where resort companies operate under long-term special use permits, building improvements and sharing a portion of their income with the Forest Service.

Bear Mountain, whose permit covers 818 acres, runs seven chairlifts on 198 skiable acres.

Snow Summit, whose permit covers 656 acres, operates 10 chairlifts on 240 skiable acres.

The permits are good through 2057, resort officials said, and linking them would require another 300 acres of Forest Service land between the two. Within that area, the “footprint of disturbance” would be relatively small, Walker said — less than 100 acres.

The main way to travel between the resorts now is to drive or catch one of the free Intermountain Shuttle buses that depart every half-hour for the 10-minute journey between the resorts.

Though Bear Mountain and Snow Summit have been under common ownership since 2002, talk of linking them didn’t heat up until after they were bought up by Mammoth Mountain in 2014, then swallowed in 2017 (along with Mammoth) by the Denver-based company now known as Alterra Mountain Co.

Alterra, one of the biggest names in the ski industry, operates 19 resorts in the Western U.S. and Canada and uses its popular Ikon season passes to market them together.

The company’s proposed link between Bear Mountain and Snow Summit is part of a broader upgrade that is spelled out in a Big Bear Mountain Resort Master Development Plan, filed by resort officials with the Forest Service in 2020.

Besides adding the acreage and two lifts — which would average 4,250 feet in length — the plan would include construction of a Goldmine Mountain Lodge (including restaurant) on Bear Mountain; the creation of 60 acres of trails in and near the expansion area; clearing trees; and building a skier bridge so that skiers and boarders can cross above an existing mountain road, 2N10, that runs between Snow Summit and Bear Mountain.

Other elements of the proposal: addition of a zipline system; 12 new mountain biking trails; a “mountain coaster” attraction on land already covered by permits or owned by Alterra; and the addition of about 1,400 parking spaces. Resorts officials said the cost of these projects is yet to be determined, pending reviews and approvals.

To put the connection between resorts in simplest terms, Big Bear Mountain Resorts advertising and public relations director Justin Kanton said, “we’re talking about a narrow ravine with two lifts coming in and out.”

“And there’s already a road that goes in and out,” Burnett added.

In the month after the August 2023 release of Alterra’s proposed plans, more than 40 local residents weighed in with letters to the Forest Service and expressed a mix of caution and support.

Mitchell Chivetta warned that “the local infrastructure cannot handle the current influx of visitors during the winter.” Even when highway 330 and 38 are in good repair, Chivetta wrote, “the traffic on these roads caused by inexperienced winter drivers creates hardship for local residents and frustrates all drivers.”

Conversely, Justin Kohlas wrote that “we’re way overdue for an upgrade to the resorts and experience on the mountain. To be able to move from Bear Mountain to Snow Summit and vice versa without the need to wait in a shuttle line makes so much sense.”