The Bridge Fire made a run through Southern California’s Mountain High Resort this afternoon, inflicting unknown damage. The resort’s own webcams showed extreme fire activity with flames surrounding both fixed grip and detachable lift terminals. An online fire map showed nearly the entire resort potentially impacted. The resort posted that San Bernardino County Fire was on the scene and to stay tuned for updates.
Unfortunately Mountain High is not alone being threatened by wildfire. Snow Valley and Mt. Baldy in Southern California; Mt. Rose and Sky Tavern in Nevada and Tamarack, Idaho all face evacuation orders this evening due to wildfires. Mt. Baldy is under a mandatory evacuation order due to the same fire that impacted Mountain High.
Snow Valley, part of Alterra’s three mountain Big Bear Mountain Resort complex, is being threatened by the 28,000 acre Line Fire. Snowmaking guns could be seen dampening lift terminals this afternoon.
Further north near Lake Tahoe, the 5,600 acre Davis Fire reached near Mt. Rose and could also impact nearby community ski hill Sky Tavern. Sprinklers could be seen spraying Mt. Rose base areas before webcams were turned off.
In Idaho, Tamarack Resort shut down operations until further notice due to a “Set” evacuation status, one level below “Go.”
Lift Blog 
I live in the valley in front of baldy and the fire has caused all of my friends that live in baldy village to evacuate. Second major fire for baldy this year. I think Mt high was even suppose to open a bike park in 2 weeks but I think that will be canceled.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Update – RIP Discovery, entire lift; Mt. High Express, top terminal pictured in article; and probably GrandView Cafe, too, at Mt. High East. That scary video was the Discovery chair. The Inciweb fire maps get updated every few minutes, and fingers crossed, the Bridge Fire hasn’t advanced across the Pacific Crest Reservoir [snowmaking pond] to torch the Ski Patrol Hut and the top terminals of the Exhibition and Blue Ridge Express chairs at Mt. High West. The Line Fire has advanced to about 200′ from the top of Chair 11, Slide Peak, Snow Valley, CA.. It was scary how quickly the Bridge Fire expanded 8x to over 34k acres within several hours this afternoon. The Line Fire also marched quickly up the south sides of Keller Peak, fire outlook torched, and Slide Peak. The MH Express has been running in slow-mo for a decade. Mt. Hi has been neglecting East for a decade, and wouldn’t be surprised if the snowmaking pond at the top of East had very little water. Fortunately for Mt. Baldy, it had a fairly full reservoir for the firefighters to use to keep the June 2024 Vista Fire from overrunning Chair 4 and the Notch Lodge.
LikeLike
Update- pretty much the entirety of mt high west and east other than the lodges have burned over.
LikeLike
When I went to sleep at 2 a.m. PDT, Mt. High West was still surviving. The top at East had burned. This morning, only Mt. High North, f.k.a. Table Mt., was left, along with the Smithsonian buildings and instruments. I started skiing at Table Mt. around 1963 on the rope tows, graduated to the Poma lifts in ’65. Also started at Blue Ridge [West] and Holiday Hill [East] in ’65, this is hard to take. Lots and lots of great memories.
LikeLike
Mountain High put out a chipper tweet this morning that the “main lifts” and buildings had little or no damage:
https://x.com/mthigh/status/1833918237693943966
LikeLike
Mountain High has said on social media that all buildings and major lifts have little to no damage.
LikeLike
I just saw a live CBS-LA webcast from Mt. High West parking lot this morning. Andy and Joe appear to be correct. Whew!
LikeLike
I was talking about the terrain, not the lifts. Sorry for to being clear.
LikeLike
They said main lifts are ok, does that mean that non-main lifts are bad?
LikeLike
If Discovery is toast, that’s a shame b/c that’s far and away the best lift at the resort for moving beginners up to the next level. Always pretty empty. Great pitch. Even better views. Access to Grandview Cafe to warm up and fill up, and then an easy download on the Mtn High Express.
Seems like the Cafe and Mtn High Express survived unless Mtn High was being really liberal with the term “main lifts and buildings”. If you don’t have that lift, there is nothing doing at East.
LikeLike
Mount Bachelor is also under an evacuation order due to the Bachelor Complex fires
LikeLike
The Davis Fire has raced up the mountain toward the Slide side of Mt. Rose, but it looks like the winds are changing directions today and may spare both Rose and Sky Tavern. However, the homes to the north toward Reno will not be so fortunate if the forecasted 70 mph winds come into play this afternoon.
LikeLike
Watching the Mountain High cams is eerie. Trees igniting next to the run on Upper Chisolm, directional signs igniting on Borderline and the lift tower disappearing in smoke and flying embers, a fire engine arriving and quickly leaving on the WSC bullwheel cam…
LikeLike
One could be forgiven for half-expecting something like the Eskimo lift destruction to happen on that cam.
LikeLike
I hate to agree. But it does make me wonder if the Haul Rope has dropped. Only time will tell.
LikeLike
It does make me wonder if the haul rope has fallen. Shame to lose such a cool YAN.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mtn. High Yan chair 8 Haulrope is still in place. Condition yet to be determined.
LikeLike
Peter’s description of the Discovery lift on this website, says that many of the lift parts are aluminum. If the sheaves are aluminum, I think there would be a high chance they melted and dropped the haul rope.
LikeLike
Worst case scenario is that they have to buy a new FGQ with loading carpet to replace it.
LikeLike
don’t overlook the Bobcat fire in 2030, Angeles National Forest, tha rolled right through Mt. Waterman ski area and almost took it down
Robert Newcomb
former original family owner
newcombrln@aol.com
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mtn. High is still an active fire scene. I would guess it’s going to be a few days before they have full access to every place on the mountain.
LikeLike
Good Luck to all these people. Hope everyone’s okay :(
LikeLike