Day 23: The Great Outdoors

The day started with an early morning hike for some of us, before a trip up Snow Summit on the Scenic Sky Chair.






The Scenic Sky Chair takes about 15 minutes to go from 7,000 feet to a summit elevation of 8,200 feet.

There was some time for hiking at the top which included time to smell the vanilla in the Jeffrey Pine. Jeffrey Pine (Pinus jeffreyi), named in honor of its discoverer John Jeffrey, is a North American pine related to Ponderosa Pine. It occurs from southwest Oregon south through much of California, to northern Baja California in Mexico. It is a high altitude species; in the north of its range, it grows at 1000-2000 m altitude, and at 1800-3000 m in the south of its range. The pine nuts are used in cooking - eg. salads.

In the afternoon we headed to the Discovery Centre, followed by an off-road trip to Butler Peak in the San Bernardino Mountains.

Butler Peak Fire Lookout (at 8535 feet) is accessible via an alpine, fireroad route through the mountains surrounding Big Bear Lake. The views from the lookout of Big Bear Lake and the surrounding valleys are spectacular.

The lookout was built in 1936 and is bascially a one room (12' x 12') perched directly on a rock. We all marvelled at how they managed to get it up there.

During the evening, Mayor Bill and his wife, Mary Jo hosted a BBQ for the team at their beautiful new home.






We were treated to an excellent dinner and a lovely "Welcome GSE Team" cake. And, of course Fosters was flowing which is apparently "Australian for beer" or is it?.

Thanks to everyone, especially Rick and Kathy, Bill and Mary Jo and our respective host families for a fantastic day and night.