Quick answer
This big bear lake la audio guide covers a San Bernardino County city at six thousand seven hundred fifty-two feet, a man-made lake named by ranchers, and the nineteen twelve concrete dam that raised the water level. Walk the shoreline, then look for the old rock dam upstream.
Full transcript
The Mountain City
Big Bear Lake sits in San Bernardino County at six thousand seven hundred fifty-two feet, a small incorporated city named for the lake beside it. The city boundary covers six point four two square miles, and the twenty twenty census counted five thousand forty-six people. From the lookout tower on Butler Peak, the valley opens eastward through the San Bernardino National Forest, with pines stepping down toward the water. Notice how the light changes when the lake appears between the ridgelines. Stand at the overlook and scan the shoreline for boats, then turn back to the forested slopes.
The Man-Made Lake
Ranchers rode into the mountains and found a lush green valley swarming with bears, and the lake took its name from that encounter. The original rock dam was built in eighteen eighty-four to provide irrigation to Redlands, but it was thin, with little cement and no reinforcing iron. The lake ran dry during the summers of eighteen ninety-eight, eighteen ninety-nine, nineteen hundred, and nineteen oh four. Snowmelt still feeds the basin, so the water level follows the mountain weather. Walk to the dam area and look upstream for the older rock structure, then watch how the shoreline sits against the pines.
The Dam and Bridge
The higher concrete dam arrived in nineteen twelve, seventy-two feet tall and about three hundred feet downstream from the old rock dam. It stood twenty feet higher and more than doubled the lake's capacity to seventy-three thousand acre-feet. In nineteen twenty-four, a highway bridge was built over the arches, making the dam a junction for two mountain highways. The original rock dam remains about fifty yards upstream and is a California Registered Historical Landmark. Stand on the bridge and look down through the arches, then scan the waterline for the older dam's stone face.