Green Valley Ski Area

Green Valley Ski Area in Green Valley Lake, California, sat on the south ridge above a small mountain lake in the San Bernardino Mountains, at about 7,200 feet near Running Springs. Skiing in the valley started before the war, when a rope tow ran on a slope near the campground. In 1945 and 1946 Joe Fox and Laurence Ferguson moved the tow equipment to the ridge and opened the Green Valley Lake Snow Bowl. Don and Ann Howe and Lyle Ferguson later ran the Snow Bowl for about 25 years.

By the early 1980s the hill had two Poma lifts and two rope tows. The longer Poma ran 1,300 feet with a 350-foot drop, and the brochure promised a lodge 300 feet from the village. Runs carried names like Big Face, Big G, Heath's Hollow, Katie's Streak and Go For Broke. A double chair arrived in the mid 1980s: a 1,200-foot Riblet bought used from Colorado. The trail map of that era added Thunderbolt, Face Plant, Jaywalk and a Rim Trail along the top, and the area marketed itself as Ski Green Valley.

In the 1990s the hill became Big Air Green Valley and went snowboard only, early enough that a trade magazine later called it the first snowboard-only resort in the country. A church owned it for several years after that, and around 2005 a new owner renamed it Trinity Mountain Resort with plans for a family resort without alcohol or tobacco. The Slide Fire reached Green Valley Lake on October 22, 2007. It burned both terminals of the chairlift and its haul rope, along with outbuildings at the hill, though the recently remodeled base lodge survived. No later season is on record. The old Snow Bowl off Angeles Drive is now a sledding and snow play spot.