Alpine Atmosphere: Halloween Up the Mountain

Big Bear Village and Lake Arrowhead will both be in the spooky swing.

THE GREAT THING... about a Halloween costume is that it can be just about anything. You can go as an Olympic diver, complete with goggles and swimsuit, and you can cross your fingers that temperatures on Oct. 31 will stay in the warm department (because throwing a coat over a swimsuit, or any costume, can prove to be kind of a bummer). Or you can go as Chewbacca, in full faux fur, and hope that temperatures will lean to the brisk after the sun goes down. The truth of the matter is we tend to lean more diver than Chewbacca 'round Southern California, at least in terms of what it is comfortable to wear on Halloween night. That tends to be the end of our annual October heat streak, and short sleeves are still seen at various parades and festivals. But up the mountain, at Big Bear Village and Lake Arrowhead, chances are good you can break out the Chewbacca get-up, or at least one with a few more layers. It's a mite brisker at the higher elevations, which won't surprise you, but it is just as festive as the towns down below. Both burgs host their own Halloween evening to-dos, and both will be out in full not-too-fearsome force on Oct. 31, 2015, which just happens to be a Saturday.

WHICH MEANS, of course, that you could book a room and bed down in Lake Arrowhead or Big Bear, the better to spend the following day catching some of the pretty changing leaves in the area. (It isn't all fir and pine.) Big Bear Village will host trick-or-treating from 5 o'clock to 7:30 p.m. on Halloween night, and over 50 spots'll be doing the candy-handing-out thing. Earlier in the afternoon the Big Bear Alpine Zoo's "Boo in the Zoo" will hold an animal-cute, spooky-cute confab. And over in Lake Arrowhead? A concert and afternoon trick-or-treating and lively doings around the clutch of Bavarian-style buildings will lend atmosphere to your up-the-mountain Halloween getaway. Both'll bear a small-town sweetness, so if a bigger raucous blocks-and-blocks-long bash is your bag, then this might not be your scene. But if you desire cooler temps, some costume action, and a walkable Halloween, spread your bat wings and flap for either village on Oct. 31.

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