The call of the wild is like a call from an elderly grandparent: though you can’t quite make out what’s being said, you feel better about yourself when you answer. Pick up nature's phone with today's Groupon: for $30, you get one all-day lift pass to Mt. Baldy (a $64 value). Lifts operate Friday from 11:00 a.m. to sunset, and from 7:00 a.m. to sunset on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays. All lift operation is subject to weather conditions.

Mt. Baldy's ski lifts gently propel patrons through the San Gabriel Mountains, over the 26 slopes and 2,100 square feet that cover Mt. Baldy's expansive terrain. Suspended up to 1,300 feet in the air, ski bunnies can gaze at the snowy tundra passing below or read cursive poetry slalomed into the mountain’s side. Four chair lifts glide up the mountain’s sides, dropping skiers and snowboarders at a variety of terrains, ranging from gentle slopes to natural quarter pipes. Intermediate slip-sliders weave through fresh-powder turns on Chair 1’s Sugar Pine or thread their way through tree lines off of Chair 4’s Turkey Shoot. Below Chair 3, experts rip down one of Thunder Mountain’s double-black-diamond runs, and beginners dig out their snow legs along Mullin’s Mile. A permanent terrain park, with slider features and a small jump, beckons to trick riders as they leap off of Chair 2, and preps snowsnake footprints of new skiers for exhilarating whooshes down the Bonanza run.

Ski lifts and hiking trails blaze through mountainsides, affording glimpses of historical mining facilities and natural wonders, such as canyons and Mother Nature's secret collection of acre-long coffee spoons. While en route, keep retinas peeled for glimpses of wildlife in the form of bighorn sheep, rattlesnakes, and body-luging sasquatches. Like historical Civil War sites on the moon, there are no gas stations in Mt. Baldy, so please plan accordingly.