Lake Alpine east of Bear Valley is frozen over, but not advisable to ice skate on. Across from Bear Valley one can ice skate on a safe multi-acre patch of ice or ski cross country. One can rent all equipment desires at Bear Valley. The lodge there is very nice but get reservations early. It was full Friday and Saturday... More

Even though we did not stay at Bear Valley we used its services. We rented snowshoes from Bear Valley Cross County. They were knowledgeable about both snowshoes and XC skiis and knew the trails well. They sold us a California Snow Park Pass needed to park at the unplowed end of Hwy 4, and later on fixed my XC skiis... More

We are a family of 4, including 2 young children, living in the South Bay Area. We are not hard core skiers: one expert, one intermediate and 2 little absolute beginners. We wanted to introduce the kids to skiing without all the traffic and hoopla that a trip to Tahoe would entail. So we searched the internet for the closest... More

The description is for Bear Valley in Alpine County, but the map and distances shown are for Bear Valley in Mariposa County. The two are quite different! There is NO skiing at Bear Valley in Mariposa County -- or much of anything else, for that matter.