"It's been an honor to join you on your journey, Jackie." That line sat on Big Bear's own tourism site this month, a plain, unadorned goodbye to the bald eagle whose nest camera made her a fixture in living rooms far outside the San Bernardino Mountains. It's also a useful marker for how crowded the next two weeks are about to get in a town built around six or seven walkable blocks.
Between October 2 and October 11, Big Bear will host a wellness festival, a public memorial for a beloved wild animal, an international ultramarathon with its own city permit and traffic plan, and a charity pub crawl. Two of those events even have names that sound like they should be the same thing and are not. If you live here, the calendar is useful for planning around traffic.
Four Occasions, Several Locations
The Big Bear Yoga Festival opens the stretch, running October 2 through 4 at the Performing Arts Center on Big Bear Boulevard, drawing a crowd for meditation, sound therapy and movement classes. The same weekend, a few miles up the mountain at Bear Mountain Resort, the community gathers for a very different register of event.
Wings Over Big Bear, a new memorial weekend for Jackie the bald eagle, runs October 3 and 4. Saturday's ceremony opens at 10 a.m. with a performance from the local Mountaintop Strings ensemble, followed by a 10:30 a.m. commemoration that the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation will formally open, according to the official event page. Speakers include representatives from Friends of Big Bear Valley, city council members, and staff from Senator Ochoa Bogh's and Supervisor Dawn Rowe's offices. Sunday shifts tone entirely into Wildlife Education Day, with family-friendly programming including a bird-watching walk and a seed collection event spread across the valley, as NBC Los Angeles reported.
The HOKA Kodiak Ultra Marathons by UTMB return October 8 through 11, so it is worth noting the related street and parking changes.
What Actually Closes and When
Kodiak isn't a small footrace. The City of Big Bear Lake's special event permit for this year's race, filed as SE2026-0046, projects roughly 3,000 runners and 8,500 spectators moving through town, according to the city's own permit notice. The race includes five distances, from a 10K up to a full 100 miles, with courses that climb Snow Summit, trace the Pacific Crest Trail through Holcomb Valley, and summit Sugarloaf Mountain at nearly 10,000 feet, according to race organizer UTMB. Setup begins October 5, and the city doesn't expect full cleanup until 7 p.m. on October 12.
The part that matters if you live nearby: Pine Knot Avenue, between Village Drive and Cameron Drive, closes at 9 a.m. on October 7 and doesn't reopen until 6 p.m. on October 11. No-parking restrictions extend along Cameron Drive to Pine Knot during the same window. Big Bear Mountain Resort's own event page adds that parking lots at Snow Valley, Snow Summit, Bear Mountain and Sandalwood will be rotating in and out of service for racers and spectators from Friday afternoon through Saturday night. If your normal route into town runs through that stretch of the Village, plan around it for the better part of a week, not just race day.
The Crawl During Race Weekend
The Bear Crawl is the event to keep in mind during Kodiak weekend. The Bear Crawl, a bar-hopping fundraiser benefiting the Big Bear Alpine Zoo and the Grace's Place Foundation, is set for October 10, according to Big Bear's own events listings. That date falls squarely inside the Kodiak closure window, on a Saturday when the Village is already hosting race spectators, an expo, and a finish line at Christmas Tree Corner on Village Drive.
Anyone doing the Bear Crawl that day isn't just navigating a normal Village Saturday. They're navigating one with an active ultramarathon finish line, medical support stations, and foot traffic control already in place. It's not a reason to skip it. It's a reason to expect a different kind of crowd than a typical bar crawl brings, and to know that parking near the usual Village spots will be tighter than usual.
Then, three weeks later, a second event shows up with a name built to be confused with the first. Crawl the Bear, a Halloween costume event in the Village, runs October 31. It has nothing to do with the Bear Crawl fundraiser on October 10. Same six blocks, same general vibe, different cause, different month, and if you only half-remember the name when a neighbor mentions it, you'll end up at the wrong one.
Where to Eat Between All of It
The Village's dining scene has shifted enough in the last year that the reliable order might not be where it used to be. On Big Bear Boulevard, an IHOP and Applebee's now share a single building, a combined concept the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce marked with a ribbon-cutting when it opened, billed as the first dual-branded location of its kind in California. It's not subtle, but it's fast, which can be useful during race weekend.
Inside the Village itself, the newer names worth knowing include Oakside, a two-story bar and restaurant built around an upscale mountain lodge feel, and Tropicali, which has carved out a spot for Hawaiian poke and island-style bowls in a town otherwise built on burgers and pizza. Longer-standing local favorites like Wyatt's Grill and Saloon on Big Bear Boulevard, recently voted first place for best nightlife and live music venue, and The Bear Trap Taproom and Kitchen on Lakeview Drive remain the steadier bets if you'd rather sit somewhere familiar while the Village outside gets loud.
Putting the Dates Together
None of this is complicated once it's laid out in order. It's complicated when you're trying to hold all four events in your head from memory while also deciding whether you can get your car out of your own driveway.
- October 2 to 4: Big Bear Yoga Festival at the Performing Arts Center. October 3 and 4: Wings Over Big Bear at Bear Mountain Resort, running the same weekend at a different venue.
- October 5: Kodiak Ultra setup begins.
- October 7, 9 a.m.: Pine Knot Avenue closes between Village Drive and Cameron Drive. It stays closed through October 11 at 6 p.m.
- October 8 to 11: Kodiak Ultra Marathon races run, with the 100-mile start on October 9 and the shorter distances following through the weekend.
- October 10: The Bear Crawl fundraiser for the Big Bear Alpine Zoo and Grace's Place Foundation, held inside the active race footprint.
- October 12, by 7 p.m.: City-mandated Kodiak cleanup complete.
- October 31: Crawl the Bear, the Halloween event, unrelated to the October 10 fundraiser despite the name.
Big Bear's Village has always been small enough to walk end to end in ten minutes. This particular stretch of October brings several events to Big Bear, with some overlap in the Village. None of it requires a special plan beyond knowing the dates before you're standing in the middle of them.
If you're the kind of person who likes tracking what's actually happening on your own streets before it shows up in a text from a neighbor, Colleen Horgan keeps an eye on Big Bear's calendar year-round and is always glad to compare notes on what's coming next.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
