One of the items on my winter bucket list was to see snow. Having lived in California for going on six years, I very rarely see snow and have been missing it! When I wrote it on my bucket list, I honestly had no idea how or when it would happen. I thought we’d most likely have to take an overnight trip up to Tahoe or something like that. While a Tahoe trip would be amazing, I wasn’t sure if it was in the cards this winter.
But after we got back from our New Orleans trip I had the idea to research whether it snows anywhere in Southern California. I quickly realized that there were several places we could go! I picked Wrightwood, California, for its proximity to LA and lack of mountain driving (meaning we most likely wouldn’t need snow chains on our tires).
This gives you an idea of how close Wrightwood is to LA—making a day trip possible.
We decided to bring Willie with us since he had never seen snow (at least since we adopted him-we don’t know much about his life before that). It was SO FUN! Our little snow day is definitely a favorite memory of 2019 already. Here are some favorite pictures and details from the day!
Our schedule for our snow day was to wake up, drop Bean at daycare (chihuahua in the snow = unhappy chihuahua), and hit the road. We stopped for some snacks on the way (Swedish fish are always a must for me on car trips). By mid morning, we were in the middle of a snow storm! It was hard to believe since we’d woken up in sunny West Hollywood. Wrightwood felt like a perfect choice because while a few other people had the same idea as us, it wasn’t nearly as crowded as I’ve heard Big Bear and Lake Arrowhead can be in the winter.
We put a local market into our GPS because I’d read that you have to buy a forest parking pass to park on the side of the road in a Wrightwood. We’ve done this in Big Bear in the summer before too. But when we got there, they said we didn’t need one because there are no rangers patrolling because of the government shutdown. So so weird.
Anyway, we then headed up Angeles Crest Highway (in basically a blizzard at this point) and parked on the side of the road. This was right by the Mountain High skiing area. We walked into a big meadow/clearing where kids were sledding and people were having snowball fights and we just frolicked!
I am very happy to report that Willie LOVED the snow! We had a coat for him but weren’t sure if he would be too cold, as he is a short-haired, perpetually tan, SoCal boy through and through. But he was sooo excited! Throwing snowballs for him to bite was hilarious and he was just prancing so happily. We definitely want to take him to see more snow in the future-he did so great.
Our little snow day was just pure happiness and simple fun. I would spend a whole weekend in Wrightwood for sure, but it was such a cool discovery that we could easily do a day trip to see snow from LA! I think we started a new tradition for our little family :)
