I can't imagine what this place must be like in mid-summer when crawling with people. People will come up there no matter how poorly it is managed - the forest service doesn't have to care. How can they get away with this? Easy - they are a beautiful mountain area adjacent to the most populated cities in the country, which is cool in the summer while the cities cook. Our trip was hobbled by poor signage and our plans were semi-trashed by the capricious management decisions, or bad information, or both, of the forest service. People need signs, and need to make plans. There is really no excuse for these problems. The rest we tried to visit were closed and locked up tight - not only no explanations, but nobody to ask. In short, the weather DID permit - yet we found ONLY ONE of the national forest areas we stopped at to be open. Although there was some snow left on steep shady areas of the mountains, we encountered NO snow on any roads or in any of the natural areas we stopped in. Both April 7 and 8 were beautiful days up there - sunny, high 66 on the 7th, 68 on the 8th. We read on their website, as well as being told, that the areas we would be visiting would be opening on April 7, weather permitting. We came from near Chicago, so we checked this out well ahead of time. For example, major scenic turnouts that are even labeled on maps have no signage associated with them - you just come upon them (bang!) along the road and have to make an instantaneous guess about whether this is "it" or not.Īn issue more specific to us, but still telling of management attitude: We were up there early in the season - April 8. Major picnic and recreation areas might or might not be acceptably marked, but other than that, forget it. First, the signage is uniformly poor everywhere. But we found the management by the forest service to be poor and capricious. My wife and I spent a day in the San Bernardino National Forest - specifically, in the mountains along Routes 38 and 18, from well east of Big Bear City to about Crestline, where we descended back down to the valley.
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