The drive ends with the Rim of the World.
But to get there (from the South end), you first drive through some absolutely gorgeous forested mountains.
As we rose in altititude (max we reached was just over 8,000 ft), we encountered quite a bit of snow (but none on the roadway).
On the north shore of Big Bear Lake (elev 6750 ft) there are some pretty spectacular homes!
Near the west end of the lake, we stopped off at the Big Bear Discovery Center where Theresa made friends with a (thankfully) bronze bear!
Inside the center, we noticed this little Doggy water dish!
Our friend Pat in San Diego is following our blog and we knew she would like to see this!
Again, we make friends with a bear - this time a bear skin!
(Hopefully this is as close as we'll come to a real bear!)
For those we've left behind in the snow, we finally encountered snow!
Bob actually got snow in his shoe while taking some of these shots!
He even got his sock damp!!
(I'm not sensing I'm getting much sympathy here!)
Big Bear is a man made lake and is over 7 miles long!
It is a completely snow-fed lake having no other means of tributary or mechanical replenishment, so you know its gotta be cold! (Remember the bit Bill Cosby did on swimming in a mountain lake?) The East end was still iced over but about halfway down the shore, the ice gave way to water. This shot is from the West end of the lake.
This area is also popular as a ski resort and we saw the lifts and slope as we drove.
They didn't seem busy but it is Monday, so the weekend was probably very busy.
Once we'd left the lake, we entered the Rim of the World region, so named because of the vista from the drive down into the valleys below. (Pan shot below really makes it clear.)
Silverwood Lake was out of the way but worth every hairpin turn on the road to reach it!
This lake is at 3500 ft, so is no where near as high as Big Bear.
Many of the scrub trees around the lake at the west end (where we drove) appeared to be charred. Not sure if they were involved in some of last years fires, but we saw many signs encouraging people to clear the forest near their homes to make them more survivable in future fires.
Finally, this panoramic shot shows the valley floor as seen from the Rim of the World drive.
After seeing this, the name seems to fit nicely. It's hard to believe we are only an hour from Los Angeles!
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