Weekend Escape to Big Bear Lake

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny space you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

With my hubby and I both home last weekend with nothing on the agenda, we decided to  take a road trip to a place we’d never visited before: Big Bear Lake. Located in the San Bernardino Mountains about 2 1/2 hours away from our house in San Diego’s North County, Big Bear Lake is a popular destination known for its winter ski slopes as well as summertime water sports.  

My hubby had brought up the idea of camping in the area mid-last week. However, all of the campsites at the lakeside campground I wanted to stay at were already reserved. Plus fires aren’t currently allowed there because of the extremely dry conditions and high fire danger, and that’s kind of my favorite part of camping, so we decided to leave the pup home and go for a long day trip to Big Bear instead. We headed out bright and early on Saturday morning, with breakfast on-the-go:

Like much of California, the trip to Big Bear was a gorgeous ride. The town is named after the Grizzly bears that inhabit the area, which I was kind of hoping to spot while we were there (within a safe distance), but no such luck!

Once we got into the area, we popped into the Big Bear Discovery Center to obtain a parking pass and get further info about the trail we wanted to hike: Cougar Crest – Bertha Peak. After researching the trails in the Big Bear area, this one seemed to be the best half-day hike for us. The hike is about 7 miles from the trailhead, and pretty soon after you start hiking, the views are beautiful: lots of trees and green, and a nice view of Big Bear Lake and surrounding mountains!  The hike had a nice steady incline a lot of the time. We were happy that it wasn’t too steep because both A and I felt a little short of breath from the elevation, which we aren’t used to! Big Bear Lake sits at around 7,000 feet in elevation.

The Cougar Crest Trail ends at the juncture of the world-famous Pacific Crest Trail, known as the PCT. This was kind of cool for us because we watched the movie Wild recently, the non-fiction movie starring Reese Witherspoon about a woman who hikes 1,100 miles of the PCT in hopes of finding herself and getting a fresh start. The movie itself was just okay, but being a hiker, I was intrigued at the movie’s concept. The PCT runs all the way down from Mexico up to Canada!

After we hit the PCT sign, the incline got steeper for a bit. I noshed on a granola bar while my heart rate soared as we hiked up the trail. It was a definitely a workout but I was energized in knowing that we were getting close to the peak. 

Once we hit the top, we took in the view, hydrated and relaxed for few minutes.

And of course, we snapped a few photos…

…and I couldn’t resist a few yoga poses, because a mountain peak usually makes for a cool yogi shot: 

The trail was out-and-back, so we headed back down the way we came to descend down the mountain. Along the trail we came across lots of hikers wondering, “How much longer til we reach the top?” and friendly dogs happy to be in nature.

The trail took us 3 hours and 15 minutes total, and actually took us the same amount of time to hike up the trail as it did to descend down it. Towards the end I was feeling a bit depleted and my feet were starting to feel sore, and it reminded me that I haven’t done a hike other than my usual hourlong hike at a nearby park in a few months! This is because I was A.) out of town for 3 weeks, and B.) It has been too hot in the San Diego mountains to hike much lately.

Big Bear Lake was about 70 degrees and perfect sunshine on Saturday, making it awesome hiking weather that we thoroughly enjoyed!

Once I clocked in my heart rate monitor and saw that I burned over 1,200 calories on the hike (plus probably another 100 in the 15 minutes after this in post-workout burn), I knew why I was feeling a bit depleted. It was time to refuel, and I gobbled a whole wheat bagel with cream cheese, drank the rest of my CamelBak (which I had refilled once during the hike), and immediately felt back to normal. Carbs = energy!

Cougar Crest to Bertha Peak was exactly the kind of workout we were hoping it to be. Afterwards, we changed and cleaned up in the Discovery Center public bathrooms, and headed over to the other side of Big Bear Lake to explore what’s called The Village.

Bustling with lots of people, The Village has tons of shops, restaurants and bars to check out. We walked around and explored, including popping into an adorable place called Oliver’s Emporium – a store full of things for dog lovers. We got to meet Oliver himself, a cute little pup who was hanging out in a bed behind the cash register.

The store has a lot of clever photo frames, my favorite of which was one that said, “Live as though someone left the back gate open.”  I nabbed a few little things, including a bear claw treat to bring home to my pup. The above dog treat area looked so yummy, a little girl was crying because she wanted one of the dog treat donuts and didn’t understand that they weren’t for humans. Ha!

Afterwards, we popped into the Big Bear Brewing Co. for a rounds of drinks and to watch football. It was a nice casual spot to watch sports and the pumpkin ale bubbling next to us in the restaurant’s brewery. We also split an order of soft pretzels to nosh on, which totally hit the spot.

Wine + pretzels = great post-hike yumminess!

We also grabbed dinner, which I wasn’t impressed with – but what I was impressed with was what came next: dessert. Packed with visitors with a sweet tooth, North Pole Fudge & Ice Cream Co. seemed like the most popular place in town. The store offers quite the variety of chocolate covered things – from chocolate covered twinkies and rice crispy treats to chocolate covered bananas and licorice. It also is an ice cream shop, but I had my eye on the chocolate.

While the store was small and crowded, we waited on long because I simply needed some chocolate for the road. Can you blame a girl? 😉

We took a (huge!) piece of mint Oreo chocolate bark and a hunk of chocolate peanut butter brownie fudge to try on the ride home.  

Heading out of Big Bear Lake, we got to enjoy some gorgeous sunset skies. The area reminded me of a mini Lake Tahoe — the Southern California version of Tahoe perhaps. 

I may have done a bit of planning a day or two before the weekend, but since I typically research a destination months or at least weeks ahead of time (I can’t help it, I love planning trips!), I’m checking ‘Go on an impromptu trip’ off of my ‘Before 30’ bucket list…and all in all, we had a fantastic day in Big Bear!

Harley also approved of her peanut butter bear claw treat. But then again, she pretty much approves of anything peanut butter… like mother, like daughter I suppose!

Tell me… Are you a planner when it comes to trips? What was the last road trip you took?