Mt. Pinos Is Some of the Closest Backcountry Skiing and Snowboarding to L.A.

A view from Mt. Pinos, just outside Los Angeles. Photo: Aaron Price

For The Inertia

About two-hours from Los Angeles there’s an eight-mile road. Along this eight-mile road is a network of trails — some mapped, some known only to the locals — that weave in and out of the Los Padres National Forest. Show up on a weekend, or after a huge snow dump, you’ll find 500-plus cars parked anywhere there’s space, with people spilling out ready to enjoy a full day of cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, sledding, tearing up the backcountry, or simply tailgating in thermals and ski pants.

Mt Pinos is the highest point in Ventura County at 8,847 feet, and sits just outside of Frazier Park, a small community known for its hiking and mountain biking in the summer. Although the mountain is almost exactly the same distance from L.A. as Big Bear, the area’s more commercial, well-groomed sibling, Pinos remains a little more discreet, attracting mostly locals, long-term residents of the surrounding cities, and avid nordic skiers. That doesn’t mean you’re not welcome though.

“For the most part, we love to see people on the mountain. We want to encourage that,” says Elliott Reyna, a local firefighter who grew up in Frazier Park and, although moving away for college, came back to start a family and regularly shred the wooded acres he knows like the back of his hand. “Take today, I had a man in a jeep asking about splitboarding. I showed him some spots.”

Read more: https://www.theinertia.com/mountain/guide-closest-backcountry-ski-and-snowboard-los-angeles