[quote=smshorttimer][quote=bearishgurl]There aren’t any alpine lake-view cabins or even lake cabins (I wouldn’t call “Big Bear” necessarily “alpine”) any closer than seven hours from SD.[/quote]
. . . Shoot, BG, Big Bear Lake is, if anything, a few hundred feet higher than Lake Tahoe (6700 to 6200) — talkin’ lake level. And when you count just South Lake Tahoe, both don’t exactly have sterling reps for overall class of peeps.[/quote]
smshortimer, I’ve stayed overnight in Big Bear a few times, both in motels and private homes. Disregarding “elevation,” it is not where I’d want to live, even part time. The skiing is periodically warm and slushy and it tends to be a short season, dependent on snow-making. In the afternoons, it’s often like skiing on cardboard. The ski resorts are small and without the level of challenge. That’s not to say that Tahoe resorts couldn’t and hasn’t had short seasons in the past. But Big Bear is situated directly over the high desert and warmer than Tahoe. The breezes blowing through there are warm, even in winter. There are less pines and BB Lake doesn’t have near as much to offer as Lake Tahoe. BB doesn’t have the housing types or even the sheer amount of vacation rentals on offer as does Lake Tahoe. I don’t care about the gambling peeps at Tahoe. I don’t gamble. I want to live near world class skiing at Heavenly w/o paying the exorbitant lodging fees and taxes just to ski. I want to buy a season pass year after year for me and my family members and have a place big enough for us all to stay and walk to bus/lifts. It’s nice to have the beautiful indoor and outdoor concert venues there. I like its conveniences, the free bus line, the plowed roads, the beautiful overlooks and monuments around the lake, the neighborhoods on sewer, a Safeway, branches of major banks, etc.
I don’t want to be situated in as small of a community as BB when I retire. There’s not enough there for me.
I’m not actually sure I would want to retire FT in Tahoe, hence my more urban county choices for retirement (<= 4 hrs. from Tahoe) with the idea of the Tahoe location for a "second-home" fixer that my family can eventually help me fix up, little by little as we stay there. There are lots of these properties currently available, many within two blocks of the free bus line.
I don't like the desert at all. Even mountains over high desert is not an "Alpine" life to me. It doesn't "feel" the same and it isn't the same. Lake Tahoe is TOTALLY WORTH the additional 6-7 hr drive. TOTALLY. There's no comparison between the two places . . . at all. They're in completely different categories.
