Heavenly Mountain Resort wasn’t so heavenly this past weekend.
The ski resort located on the California-Nevada border in southeastern Lake Tahoe is known of its scenic views and – forgive me for saying this – gnarly powder. I’m not a skier, nor have I have hit the slopes, but one of my life goals is to ski down a mountain and then tell someone at the bottom “that was some gnarly powder.” This location seems like the perfect place to do that.
Heavenly Ski Resort is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. It provides challenging slopes for skiers of all levels, and after this viral video, it can now boast that it has “moving obstacles” to test even the most experienced skiers. By the way, those moving obstacles I’m alluding to are bears.
It’s estimated that 340,000 bears live in the United States, and in certain parts of the country, residents have to always be on alert and keep an eye out for bears. Black bears make up most of that total number (around 300,000), and one place where you are likely to see them is in the Lake Tahoe area of California. Roughly 300 black bears call the Lake Tahoe basin home. The woodland and forest environment located near – you guessed it – Lake Tahoe is the perfect place for a bear to call home. Even when the peaks and hills are covered in snow, a black bear can tough out the weather. Judging by this clip below, they even like to hit the slopes with fellow skiers.
Ekalak Lakshana was snowboarding just in front of his friend, Hunter Martinez, and videoing their descent down the slopes of Heavenly Ski Resort. At first, it was just your typical, “Look at me, I’m shredding the gnars!” footage. But then, the unthinkable happened.
A bear ran out of the woods and onto the open snow and was heading right toward Martinez. As the snowboarder told Snowboarder Magazine, it was a sight that the frequent winter sport enthusiasts were not used to seeing:
“When I saw the bear coming at me, all I could think was, ‘Today is not the day—you’re not catching me!’ I’ve seen bears near the slopes before, but never one running right in the middle like this.”
To the credit of Martinez, he did an immaculate job of throwing on the brakes in an effort to avoid the charging bear. However, for a moment in the video, the sudden stop threw up a ton of snow, temporarily making Martinez and the bear disappear in a wall of powdery precipitation.
Fortunately, even if the snowboarder collided with the bear, it was a minor encounter. The bear could be seen running off and away from the slopes, and Martinez popped back up in disbelief. Lakshana went back to check on his friend, and a classic “bro handshake” signaled everything was okay:
“He gave me a fist bump before cruising down the slope, so all ended well.”
All in all, it was the textbook definition of a close call. Lakshana and Martinez were lucky that the bear didn’t mean any harm as it went dashing through the snow. And it seems as though the snowboarders were basically unfazed by the incident, considering they posted the video with this caption that read:
“Sunday Fun-day at Heavenly and it’s a PERFECT day for shredding the slopes. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, Boo-Boo came sprinting across the trail – guess he’s on the hunt for Yogi Bear! South Lake Tahoe vibes are unmatched today! Who’s hitting the mountain next?”
