The history of Kratka Ridge dates back to 1948 when the U.S. Forest Service issued a ski area permit to 11 men who founded the San Gorgonio Ski Club. These men spent over 700 hours each to build a ski lodge and four rope tows. Kratka Ridge officially opened in 1951 with four rope tows and a handful of trails. It wasn't long until the ski area constructed a single chairlift in 1953 that opened up the entire ridge to skiing.

In its early days, Kratka Ridge saw enormous success. Though the snow could be hit or miss, Kratka Ridge usually opened by December and sometimes even closed in April, thanks to the ski area's northern exposure. In 1960, Kratka hired Ed Hensley as the general manager. Ed and his family moved up to the ski area, constructing a permanent residence next to the chairlift's base terminal.

In 1962, the trail rope slipped off one of the bull wheels, causing a detensioning of the lift. Thankfully only 15 people were riding the lift at the time of the accident and only a handful sustained minor injuries. In the aftermath of the incident the lift was repaired and it never suffered from a malfunction like that again.

Kratka operated much as it always had through the 1960s and 1970s. The area had no snowmaking system and was completely reliant on whatever the weather brought in. However, as the ski area's runs had a northern exposure, the snow generally stayed longer at Kratka than at other mountains, which often helped the ski area stay open until April.

The Hensleys were really the reason the ski area stayed open for all the years it did. Ed Hensley purchased the resort in the late 1960s, staying with the ski area for the next few decades through good and bad snow years. However, throughout the mid-1980s the Hensleys realized that the ski area needed more terrain and snowmaking to be sustainable. Thus they pushed hard to develop both a snowmaking system and increased the skiable acreage of Kratka. This was spurred on by poor winters in which Kratka struggled to open, most notably when the ski area did not operate at all for the 1982 ski season.

In 1984 a new beginner double chairlift was installed that replaced two rope tows. This lift was constructed by Ski Lift International and drastically improved the beginner experience. It was supposed to be the first of many upgrades and expansions to Kratka Ridge. While the snowmaking system was originally supposed to originate from a watershed, after several endangered frogs were discovered the U.S. Forest Service decided that the ski area's water supply would come from wells that Kratka Ridge would privately drill. This led the Hensleys to sell Kratka Ridge in 1988, as they didn't have the financial resources to do this. John Steedley purchased the ski area from the Hensleys but kept the family on to oversee the expansions at Kratka.

In the mid-1990s the ski area changed its name to Snow Crest. John Steedley often held big parties in the ski lodge at Kratka. In 1999, after a big rave party, five teenagers drove their car off the steep highway after leaving Snow Crest. This, along with other legal action by the family of the deceased, prompted Steedley to change the resort's name back to Kratka Ridge, in an effort to boost the resort's public image.

Later that year, John Steedley sold the resort to a group of investors led by Barry Stubblefield. This group also bought Mount Waterman ski area and had plans to install snowmaking and interconnect the two resorts. Both resorts opened for the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 ski seasons. However, Kratka Ridge closed in February of 2001 due to an avalanche that damaged several of the single chairlift's towers. In December of 2001, the bottom terminal of the single chairlift burned to the ground. While reportedly insurance had been collected on both the fire and the avalanche, the group of investors decided to permanently shutter both Kratka and Mount Waterman. The Forest Service revoked the operating permit for both resorts in 2002.

While Mount Waterman was able to reopen for skiing in 2006 under new owners, Kratka Ridge has been abandoned since then, with the lodge boarded up and the chairlift still standing. In 2020, the Bobcat Fire swept through the upper part of Kratka Ridge, completely destroying the top terminal of the single chair and causing a complete detensioning of the lift, though the double chair and lodge survived the fire. While Mount Waterman still operates, Kratka Ridge will likely never operate again as a lift-served resort. However, it can't be understated the influence that Kratka Ridge had on not only Los Angeles but all of Southern California, as it truly was an instrumental resort in developing the ski culture that still exists today.