The newest lift-served bike park in Southern California has just opened to the public

Downhill mountain biking comes to the outskirts of Los Angeles at Mountain High Resort.
All photos courtesy Mountain High Resort

The chair lifts stopped spinning in late spring, bringing a close to the 2024/2025 ski season at Mountain High Resort. The resort, located just outside of Los Angeles’ urban sprawl, just celebrated 100 years of skiing off its 8,200-foot peak.

But on June 14, the chairs began spinning once again, and not due to some sort of season-extending snowfall. Rather than skiers and snowboarders heading to the top, mountain bikers were getting the chance to ride Southern California’s newest lift-served bike park.

Downhill mountain biking comes to the outskirts of Los Angeles

Mountain High Resort is part of the Big Pines Ski Area, located in the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles. Originally, Mountain High consisted of three separate resorts: Holiday Hill, Ski Sunrise, and Mountain High. By the late ‘90s, the other resorts were acquired by Mountain High, with all three given cardinal location names — Mountain High East, West, and North.

“As the bird flies, we’re only a few miles away from Los Angeles,” Amando Hernandez, Director of Ski Patrol, told us. “It’s probably only about an hour and a half to an hour and 40 minutes’ drive from downtown LA.”

“After work, you can come up, get some laps in, and then be home the same day,” Joey Valdez added. “You don’t have to worry about trying to stay the night somewhere and doing all that.” Valdez works as the Assistant Director of Ski Patrol. 

Valdez and Hernandez played a significant role in getting bikes up to Mountain High.

Bike park origins

The idea of building a bike park at Mountain High had been bouncing around the resort for several years, with nothing ever coming to fruition. That is, until 2020, when Hernandez and Valdez took a trip to Texas during the pandemic.

“You know, during COVID, no one was really able to do anything or go out anywhere,” Hernandez said. “We were just really getting pretty stir-crazy.” Hernandez’s sister worked at Spider Mountain as it was getting up and running, and invited the pair to check out the mountain bike scene in Texas.

Inspired by their trip to Texas, Hernandez and Valdez came back eager to pursue a bike park at Mountain High. The two headed to the North Lodge and scratched in a small trail for Hernandez to ride while Valdez followed with a drone. A week later, they had a presentation ready to show to the owner and upper management. 

The North Lodge was initially the desired location for the mountain bike park. Hernandez and Valdez loved the slope and the terrain, and felt the dirt was of better quality for building. However, the North Lodge is already busy with summer operations like disc golf, so Mountain High West became the home of Southern California’s newest downhill mountain bike park.

After less than a year of building, Mountain High’s bike park opened with two full runs and one connector trail. 

And more are on the way.

New trails on offer: a green, a blue, and a connector

“I’d say [we currently] have two and a half trails,” Hernandez said. “Our green trail is just over three miles long, our blue trail is just over two miles long, and we have a breakaway connecting trail that is about a half-mile long.”

Not bad for less than two seasons of trail building. Mountain High is undertaking all the trail construction themselves, using both machines and hand tools. Hernandez and Valdez were able to attend several trail-building conferences and had trail crews, including Gravity Logic, Dirt Tech, and IMBA, consult on the project.

The San Gabriels are steep, so Hernandez and team have had quite the task building trails in time for their June 14 opening day. Hernandez shared that much of the steep terrain is thanks to the San Andreas Fault, which runs right through the resort. 

Lil Pines is Mountain High’s beginner-friendly green. It twists and turns numerous times, dropping roughly 1,000 feet over a distance of three miles. While Lil Pine has fairly good dirt, Hernandez said that it is starting to dry out. However, the crew has established watering wells along the trail that are used to help keep the dust down.

As a beginner trail, Lil Pine is flowy and relatively wide. While there are a few side hits and options here and there, don’t expect anything too crazy.

Lil Pines eventually drops into a small skills park before riders get back on the lift.

The intermediate trail, Coyote Creek, begins with a squirrel catcher.

“Immediately when you come into the left, there’s a good little rock drop that we put right there,” Valdez told us. 

Along with a drop and some steeps, Valdez said that Coyote Creek finishes with switchbacks, big berms, and quite a few jumps. “But yeah, that one’s got a lot of jumps, especially near the top. It’s a good little jump line.”

Coyote Creek also drops around 1,000 feet but does so in only two miles, compared to Lil Pines’ three.

Last is Break Away, a half-mile connector trail roughly halfway down the mountain between Lil Pines and Coyote Creek. Break Away comes off of Lil Pines, is intermediate-rated, and has a rock drop and a few tabletop jumps scattered throughout.

Future plans at Mountain High Resort

“Yeah, I definitely feel like we can get at least three more trails [built this season] because we’ve done a pretty good job of creating those two main arteries,” Hernandez told us.

The Mountain High crew isn’t slowing down while patrons visit the mountain. Two more intermediate blue trails are currently in the works — a tech trail and a jump trail. They are also working on a more advanced trail.

“The terrain is pretty steep, but I feel like we have some really good areas for grade reversals or maybe even some larger jumps,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez and Valdez hope mountain bikers will be able to ride these new trails before the end of the season.