Bumping up and down in the backseat of Dad’s green convertible Jaguar, the potholes of Mt Baldy’s parking lot bring excitement for a day of skiing ahead.
That backseat was once a battleground for “shotgun” against my brother. A battle I often won. The upgrade to the passenger seat led to today.
More than 15 years later, I had to return to the mountain that shaped me. In the driver’s seat of my own car, retracing the road to where it all began.
Mt Baldy is a four-chair ski haven tucked into Angeles National Forest—just an hour outside Los Angeles.
Driving from the city, the snow-capped peak shines through the dusty sunbaked ridges of the San Gabriel Valley along Interstate Highway 210.
Old sights bring back memories. The city fades. Stoplights disappear. Wooden cabins emerge, and a sign that reads, “Throwing Snowballs at Moving Vehicles is Prohibited.”
As I navigate the hairpin turns up Mt Baldy Road, the burnt mountainside and black ashed trees from 2024 fires stand beside the snowy peaks atop the road. This juxtaposition is a reminder of the mountain’s beauty and its fragility.
The death of independent skiing is no new story. But few resorts face a greater threat than Baldy, where fires can wipe operations worse than a poor snowfall year.
Skiing is often reduced to vertical feet, snowfall inches, and skiable acres. But Baldy isn’t about stats. Baldy is about stoke, however you can get it.
In the parking lot, I step out and head to the ticket booth, where a paper lift ticket is stamped with today’s date. The old-school ritual feels like a small act of preservation.
Here, you don’t mind paying because you know every dollar helps keep the lifts spinning.
Inside the lodge, laughter and conversation are underscored by the strums of Sunrise by Ryan Bingham. Resting my skis on the lodge wall, my eyes land on an old, faded map—the 1991 proposal to expand Baldy. Decades later, Chairs 5 and 6 remain only blueprints.
Earlier this dawn, as I waited for the wooden lifts to start spinning, I met two old-timers—former ski patrollers from 1973.
They never got paid, never wanted to be. And even now, they show up in whatever way they can to keep the mountain alive.
They shared a story of a time they and other patrollers pulled out their checkbooks, scraping together $8,000 to cover the 1972 season electricity bill and preventing the mountain from going under.
Their love for Baldy runs deep. One of them stepped out of the lift line to help shovel off the loading dock of Chair 2, so the rest of us could ride.
Baldy is built on community. You look out for the mountain, and the mountain looks out for you.
As I leave the lodge to head back to the SoCal slopes, there sits a pump bottle of SPF 35 sunscreen by the door. A quiet reminder to not let the California sun get in the way of some snowy California fun.
Despite being the closest actively running mountain to Los Angeles, Baldy isn’t the “white strip” that’s often synonymous with SoCal skiing. 54% of the 26 trails are expert terrain, trees are plentiful, and best of all—most runs are left ungroomed.
As I rip through the pines, my paper lift ticket flutters in the wind. The old familiar sound takes me back in time.
Tight, twisting tree lines at Baldy shaped the skier I am today. This is where I got my wings. I’ve soared through bigger trees of larger mountains and more braggadocious backcountry, but today, I felt like a baby bird returning to his nest in the pines tucked below Chair 3.
