Bear Valley Ski Resort Guide

This resort deserves a more current review and another perspective from the very negative last review from 2023. While I share some of the same concerns as that reviewer this resort has a bright future.

I have skied here since i was a kid back in the late 1970's and have owned a cabin near here for 24 years so I have spent a lot of time at the resort and been a season ticket holder most of those years. So here is the skinny from one guy you can take it for what it's worth.

During many of those years the resort seemed to stagnate as ownership hardly spent any money on improvements and was stuck in the 70's or 80s for so long with no high speed lifts an aging lodge with lousy food super long lines for everything and other issues that made things more of a pain in the butt compared to other resorts.

Finally, in the last couple years ownership changed and they have made numerous improvements with more great plans to come like opening up the mountain behind the newly updated Koala chair and eventually extending a lift from the village.

On the downside, since it's the only resort in the area they charge more than many other far superior resorts for lift tickets and season passes. Also, for now its not a big mountain so you can easily get bored skiing the same runs. For me two days here is more than enough. When its cold and they get a lot of fresh snow and they open the lower mountain that makes things much better as that's where the most advanced terrain is but its not open often maybe only 30% of the time. Without the lower mountain on weekends it can still get pretty busy with lines and tons of families with kids so very advanced skiers may not be as happy here dealing with so many novices.

Overall, I do like the mountain and the drive from the Bay Areas is faster and easer that Tahoe but I much prefer the other resorts around Tahoe. If I didn't own a place up there I probably would only come once a year but if they continue to make more improvements and modernize the resort to better compete and give customers a better value for the high prices I would come more often.