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Yahoo!For a mountain getaway, Santa Barbarans tend to make the six-plus-hour trek to Mammoth or Lake Tahoe. However, there is a place much closer to home where you can smell the pine and cedar trees and breathe in the crisp mountain air: Lake Arrowhead. Established in 1921, Lake Arrowhead sits 5,000 feet above the smog-choked Inland Empire in the San Bernardino mountain range. Despite its proximity to the millions who live in L.A. and Orange County, the mountain refuge feels quite removed from the hustle and bustle of the lowlands. Last month, I was invited to spend a few days in Lake Arrowhead to see what the area has to offer.
Michelle Drown
A view of the lake from Lake Arrowhead Spa and Resort.
I had reservations at the Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa ([909] 336-1511, laresort.com), located a few hundred yards uphill from town, Arrowhead Village. The hotel, which recently underwent a nearly $20 million makeover, is elegant and warm with a mountain-lodge feel updated for the 21st century. The lobby is peppered with Western-motif leather chairs and sofas and floor-to-ceiling windows with views of the azure lake.
One of the highlights of the resort is its Spa of the Pines. Coming from Santa Barbara, where fabulous spas abound, it takes quite a bit to impress. But impressed I was. Spa of the Pines not only has a menu of massages, facials, and the like, it also has a fitness room, yoga studio, and beauty salon. There are sunken hot tubs in both the men’s and women’s locker rooms, each of which was designed with its gender in mind. For example, the men’s hang-out room has flat-screen TVs while the women’s has comfy couches and tea.
That night I enjoyed a three-course dinner—frisée and red oak salad, filet medallion and pan-seared Idaho trout, and white chocolate-lemon pastry—at Bin189 ([909] 337-4189), the hotel’s gourmet restaurant. To accompany the food was a large selection of top-rated wines from around the world. After the sumptuous meal and palate-pleasing vino, I tottered off to my room, where I slept soundly in the über comfortable bed, the balcony drapes open to reveal the starry night.
Michelle Drown
Wolfie, a red-tail hawk at Wildhaven Ranch.
The next morning, I met my hosts in the lobby for a day of exploration. I was part of a press trip designed by Economic Vitality Corporation, a group comprised of Arrowhead businesses intent on promoting their mountain town as a weekend getaway. That’s not a new concept; from the 1920s to the 1950s, Lake Arrowhead was one of the most popular vacation destinations in Southern California. Scads of automobile-loving Angelenos would motor up the mountain for a weekend of fishing, camping, horseback riding, dining, shopping, and communing with nature. All of those activities are still available, plus there are modern amenities such as Wi-Fi and cell phone reception.
Michelle Drown
Nicholas, an owl who had lost his entire beak in an accident but was well on the mend.
After breakfast, we headed to an animal refuge called Wildhaven Ranch ([909] 337-1391, wildhaven.org), which occupies 35 acres in the Cedar Glen community. Established in 1994, the ranch is a nonprofit wildlife sanctuary for endangered and indigenous animals of the San Bernardino Mountains. It is also an education and rehabilitation center. During my visit, I got up close to an owl named Nicholas, who had lost his entire beak in an accident but was well on the mend; two orphaned black bears—Snickers and Little Bear; a red-tail hawk named Wolfie; several coyotes, who gave us a howling demonstration; Bandit the raccoon; and a bobcat and several mule deer. It was amazing to be face-to-face with these critters and be told their heartrending stories.
From Wildhaven, we drove farther up the road to the trail entrance to a series of freshwater swimming holes known as Deep Creek. To get there, one must pass through one of the devastated areas from the Old Fire of 2003, which destroyed 91,281 acres and consumed 940 homes. My grandparents owned a cabin on this road, and as a child I took many a long hike through the dense forest that enshrouded the area. Those trees—along with my family’s cabin—were incinerated by the Old Fire; what remains is a scorched, nearly bald landscape. Deep Creek, however, was spared from the flames and is an excellent starting point for hiking, horseback riding, camping, and off-roading. (For other outdoor options, call the Big Bear Ranger Station & Discovery Center at [909] 382-2790 or see fs.fed.us/r5/sanbernardino/recreation.)
Michelle Drown
The paddlewheel boat, Arrowhead Queen.
Although Lake Arrowhead averages 310 sunny days a year, the weather was changeable during my visit, alternating between blue skies and rolling fog. But the fickle conditions didn’t detract from our late-afternoon lake tour aboard the enclosed paddle-wheel boat the Arrowhead Queen ([909] 336-6992). Lake Arrowhead is a human-made, 782-acre, 185-foot-deep freshwater reservoir. Since its creation near the turn of the century, the shoreline has been an idyllic place to build dwellings. Where cabins once dotted the land, now multimillion-dollar mansions loom side by side. Because it is a private lake, you can only use the lake for recreation—boating, fishing, swimming—if you own or are staying lakeside. (Lake Arrowhead Spa is smack on the water with its own private beach for guests to sunbathe and swim.)
Michelle Drown
A mule deer at the Wildhaven Ranch.
Dinner the second night was at The Grill at the Antlers Inn & Resort ([909] 744-8412, antlersinnresort.com). Housed in an actual log cabin that was built in 1925, the restaurant originally was a dance pavilion with a dining area. Today there is no dancing, but rather a top-rated restaurant that serves some of the best food I’ve tasted. The menu is eclectic, with choices ranging from salmon with grilled banana, lemon Dijon, chutney sauce, and risotto to white truffle mac-and-cheese. I had the tequila chicken fettuccine with sweet onion, roasted red peppers, and lime-and-tequila cream sauce. That meal alone was worth the three-hour drive from Santa Barbara.
My last morning on the mountain, I wandered around Arrowhead Village. In 1979, the town’s 50-plus-year-old Norman-style structures were considered beyond repair, and so the village was burned to the ground in a firefighting exercise. Only the dance pavilion, the post office, and two other buildings were spared. The current village is architecturally similar to the former but boasts many more shops and restaurants, including several outlet stores (Coach, Bass), the famous Belgian Waffle Works, and the kids’ play area, Lollipop Land.
A brochure from the 1920s touted Lake Arrowhead as “California’s finest playground—where the days are longer, sports are keener, and sleep is sweeter.” Nearly a century later, the same sentiment holds true.
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