If you have lived up here for more than a summer, you already know that the first weekend of August is the one weekend the whole town coordinates around. Mountain Top Days is not really a festival in the tourist-brochure sense. It is the shared civic calendar for Running Springs, Arrowbear, and Green Valley Lake, the two days when the chamber, both volunteer fire departments, the parks district, and the shops on Hilltop and Commercial all line their programming up on purpose. Everything else in August plans around it.
This year it lands on Friday, August 7 and Saturday, August 8. Here is how neighbors who have done this a dozen times tend to work the weekend.
Friday evening: the parade, then Commercial Way
The parade is the anchor. Line-up starts at Old City Creek Road at 5:30, with step-off around 6:15, and it runs west to east along Hilltop Boulevard through downtown. If you have kids and you want a curb spot with shade, plan to be settled by about 5:45. If you are walking down from the neighborhoods above Hilltop, the streets closest to the route fill fast, and the awkward left off Highway 18 onto Old City Creek is worth avoiding entirely; the chamber has been telling parade entrants for years to come in from Highway 330 or Sunset instead, and that is good advice for spectators too.
What you will actually see on the route: local first responders, Smokey Bear, floats from local businesses, youth and senior line dancers, and the fire trucks that always draw the loudest cheers. It is a working-town parade, not a themed one, which is part of the appeal.
After the parade, the center of gravity shifts one block. Friday Night Live sets up behind The Cut Above and the shops on Commercial Way with live music, dancing, a beer and wine garden, and food for sale, and many of the restaurants along Hilltop stay open late with specials. If you have out-of-town family staying with you, this is the easiest part of the weekend to bring them to. Park once, walk the block, eat something, listen to a set, walk home.
A rough timeline for Friday if you want to hand it to a neighbor:
- 5:30 p.m. Parade line-up begins at Old City Creek Road
- 6:15 p.m. Step-off, heading east down Hilltop Boulevard
- ~7:00 p.m. Parade wraps near Holiday Lane; music starts on Commercial Way
- Late evening Hilltop restaurants running extended hours
Saturday: the market you already know, only bigger
Every Saturday from spring through fall, the Running Springs Farmers Market & Artisan Faire runs beside the library and Firehouse Playground on Whispering Pines Drive. On Mountain Top Days Saturday, it grows. The enhanced market runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 2645 Whispering Pines Drive, which is also where the games and events are staged.
If you normally stop by for eggs and a loaf of bread, the routine is the same, just plan for it to take longer and bring cash for the booths. The regular market vendors carry produce, cage-free eggs, honey, jam, bread, hot lunch, crafts, and body products, and most of them are still your usual Saturday people. The kids' side of the market is where it changes.
Here is what gets added on the 8th:
- Group games open to anyone showing up, including a bicycle race, an egg toss, and a watermelon-eating contest
- Booth games run by local businesses, with a fishing game, cornhole, crafts, and small prizes
- A bounce house donated by the Rim of the World Recreation and Park District
- The bucket brigade contest between the Running Springs and Arrowbear fire departments, which Running Springs took back last year
- The chamber's annual backpack and school supplies giveaway, held at the chamber booth starting at 9 a.m. while supplies last, funded through the chamber and donations from Mountain Transit
The backpack giveaway is the piece worth flagging to any neighbor with school-age kids who is new to the mountain. It is not means-tested and it is not advertised much outside the chamber's own channels, so it tends to be the first-year residents who miss it. Get there at 9 if you want a full selection.
Where to actually eat around all of this
The mistake most first-timers make is trying to eat at the festival itself both days. Food trucks and the beer garden are fine for Friday night, but Saturday you want a real breakfast before you walk into the market, and something calmer for Saturday dinner. A few options that hold up:
LuluBelle's Coffee House & Bakery, at 31621 Pleasant Drive, is the walk-in-before-the-market option. Locals talk about their scratch bakery and the fact that they also do a solid dinner pizza, so it works twice in the same day if you need it to.
Old Country Coffee Shop, at 32019 Holiday Lane, is the classic diner move. It is a family-owned diner known for all-day breakfast and generous portions, and the parade actually disbands more or less in front of it on Holiday Lane, so it doubles as a decent Friday post-parade landing spot if the Commercial Way crowd is too much.
Rocky's Roadhouse is the one locals tend to name when someone asks who is doing something different from the standard mountain menu. Regulars are specific about the pulled pork and the anti-pasta salad and rotate through occasional specials.
Neo's Pizza House and The Sugar Chalet round out the short list. Neo's is the reliable pizza call when the kids are done with market snacks and you want to sit down. The Sugar Chalet is a dessert stop and works well as a late Saturday afternoon reset when you have been out in the sun since nine.
Order of operations that tends to work: breakfast at LuluBelle's or Old Country, walk the market, use The Sugar Chalet as a cool-down, dinner at Neo's or Rocky's depending on the crowd.
If you are skipping the crowds
Not everyone wants to be downtown for both days, and August in the pines is a short season. If Saturday morning is not your speed, the weekend is a good excuse to actually use the recreation you drive past all year. Heaps Peak Arboretum has an easy nature loop, Keller Peak Fire Lookout offers panoramic views out toward the Mojave, the Children's Forest has family-oriented programming, and Snow Valley runs summer chairlift rides and trail access. Rim Nordic's trail system is right there too, and it is usually near-empty on parade Friday because everyone else is downtown.
For neighbors with dogs, this is also a weekend to keep them home. The parade route is loud with fire truck sirens and marching bands, and the market gets crowded enough that even the friendliest dog has a hard time.
Why this weekend actually matters
One thing that gets lost when this weekend gets described from the outside: Running Springs, Arrowbear Lake, and Green Valley Lake are all unincorporated communities in San Bernardino County, which means we have no local government, no mayor, and no city council, and the chamber steps in to advocate for our communities at the county level. Mountain Top Days is the visible version of that. It is when the organization that spends the rest of the year on county liaison, business advocacy, and community grants gets to do the fun part in public. Showing up is not just nice, it is the closest thing this town has to a town meeting with a parade attached.
The chamber serves nearly 6,000 residents across the three communities, and Mountain Top Days is where that number stops being an abstraction and starts looking like your actual neighbors.
If you are new to the area and reading this because you searched for what is going on downtown next weekend, welcome. Bring a folding chair Friday and cash Saturday, and introduce yourself to whoever is standing next to you at the curb. That is how most of us met the people we now count as our closest mountain neighbors.
And if the weekend gets you thinking about the house next door with the "for sale" sign that finally went up, or about whether your own cabin is ready for its next chapter, Crestline Real Estate has been walking these neighborhoods for decades. Schedule a free home consultation with our local mountain experts whenever you are ready to talk.
