Big Bear Lake Online Reservations

A Brief History of Snow Summit

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Snow Summit is located in Big Bear Lake, California. Snow Summit brought many skiing firsts to Big Bear as well as the United States.

  • 1950- Tommi Tyndall founded Snow Summit, Inc. He asked businessmen, as well as his family and family to invest in his idea.
  • 1952- Construction began at Snow Summit that included a half mile access road, a mile long chairlift and the Log Chute ski run.
  • 1953- The first detachable chairlift was installed at Snow Summit.
  • 1964- The first artificial snow of the West was made at Snow Summit.
  • 1966- Snow Summit began it's night skiing program.
  • 1969- The Westridge ski lift was made.
  • 1973- The third ski lift and its ski runs were made.
  • 1976 to 1979- Snow Summit installed chair lifts 4 through 7, more snow-making equipment, and a 10 million gallon reservoir.
  • 1980- Dick Kun, son of Tommi and Jo Tyndall, became president of Snow Summit.
  • 1981- Chair number 8 was installed.
  • 1988- Snow Summit let mountain bike riders to use the lift chairs.
  • 1995- The two main access lifts were replaced with high-speed quads.
  • 1996 to 2000- Snow Summit had many notable miles stones for Big Bear Lake such as adding snowboarder free style parks, hosting games such as ESPN's Winter X Games, and hosting MTV's Snowed In.
  • 2002- Snow Summit purchased Bear Mountain Resorts.

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