beefyjw

My friend and I want to camp up in Big Bear and hit a few trails soon. We have decent but not enormous toy rigs (33" with lockers). We've done swamp lake...but it's exhaustingly long and tough. We clean through Miller's Jeep trail without a thought. We are good drivers, but our rigs are semi limiting (truck is beat up from a long hammer trail attempt).

We have absolutely no knowledge or experience with the difficulty of the trails up in Big Bear....Any favorites? Boulders would be fun. Forest type routes would be fun. Trail side campsite would be awesome.

Any info such as trail name, length, time to run, actual experiences regarding difficulty, etc would be helpful. Side-hilling is my least favorite position to be in, so any warning of bad side-hill spots would be appreciated. Thanks!!!!!

ChefYota4x4

iTrader: (5)

Hey man,.....

You can take other trails in Big Bear beside John Bull.... But if you want boulders, I'm not someone. It's a fairly long trail and quite a ways to get there if you're going to start from the bottom... However, its rated "Most Difficult", and I wouldn't necessarily recommend IFS trucks, even on 33's, attempt it without expecting some possible carnage. Long travel on 33's, most definitely... And just to be clear, a lot of it is just and Driver experience... If you have this experience rock climbing, and you're locked, you can make it through pretty much anything, right?..... I did say pretty much. Lol.

Here are a couple of maps that are pretty helpful and if you just follow the signs as to difficulties, you could have a blast up there and find camping spots as well.....

First, I'm just curious have you ever done Cleghorn? That's a lot of fun, and it can be fairly difficult and then you can also go around the more difficult portions using the by ways or fire road.....

http://alltrails.com/trail/us/califo...rn-ridge-trail

This is John Bull, and as you can see if it's fairly steep at times and it seems to go on and on, and after you get through this portion, there are portions in my humble opinion are even more difficult....











Here are some good free maps, and you can print them from your computer. The hyperlink om this page says in quotes, click here for huge area map of 4 wheel drive trails &..... just click on the "click here" hyperlink and download the PDF so you can print it out there are plenty others, and you could camp kind of in the center on the north side of the lake at Holcomb camp ground, and there is another northeast of that deeper into the wilderness. Can't remember the name of it...

http://backcountry4x4.com/BigBearAreaTrailMap.html

This might do it...

http://backcountry4x4.com/files/SanB...p5_for_web.pdf

Have fun man! I did a full trip report on our run through Big Bear recently, with lots of pictures and videos. You can see from a lot of the video that its variety of trail types.

stevennc

I go wheeling in bear quite a bit. Did the John Bull in another buddies rig and it was really challenging definitely would be pretty tough with ifs. In my truck the hardest trail I did was gold mountain. I pulled it off with ifs , 32" tires and a lot of help from my neighbors up there. There are several free camping sites trailside, as well as a few shooting ranges in the hills. I usually wheel for a bit and come watch some rigs come down the john bull after the little water crossing there.