A Nevada pastor has asked his followers to pray for the capture of a bear that broke into their church. The animal smashed through a church door and ate 22 jars of peanut butter, some corn flakes, and other food that was heading to needy families. This is the same 700lb black bear that’s torn apart homes in Incline Village, taking off a couple weeks to recuperate after getting hit in the shoulder with two bullets shot by an upset homeowner. They estimate the bear has caused $70k in damage so far. A little more news coverage and this bear will become a folk hero. People will come from all around to protest its attempted capture and cheer its dalliances with the law in Reno. Then it will eat those people and Sean Penn will make a movie about them (soundtrack by Pearl Jam).

via Outdoor Pressroom

I’ve never skied outside of the U.S., unless you count Canada as ‘outside of the U.S.’ Mongolia opened their first ski resort this month, and South Korea opened their seventh. South Korea is roughly the size of Minnesota, which is home to about 21 ski hills. South Korea is opening Alpensiato sweeten their bid to host the next winter Olympics, where this hill’s six ski runs and one sledding hill would be used for some of the Olympic sledding events. They only have 14 more hills to go before they’ll be able to outbid Minnesota for the next winter games. And why not MN? Buck Hill has produced more Olympians than Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons combined. It might be because there’s little else to do besides chase gates down the 300 vertical feet at Buck, but we can still claim Lindsey Vonn. Plus Minnesotans are all passive-aggressively nice, and it would take the foreign community longer than the couple weeks that the Olympics last to figure it out.

The American Alpine Institute pointed me towards this British video of people trying to get used to taking falls while lead climbing. They point out that learning to take these falls in a controlled environment is easy and helps prepare people for pitching off leads more safely in the outdoors. Their clip-drop teaching technique is basically just falling after you clip and then climb up a few feet. It’s very simple. So simple, that you’re better off turning off the sound on the above Vimeo video and playing the music from the YouTube clip below.

Stein Eriksen is interviewed in today’s Salt Lake Tribune, and we learn that the octogenarian ski racer has finally taken steps to protect his lustrous hair with a helmet. The change came at the urging of his wife after a kid shot out of the woods and broke Stein’s wrist and collarbone a couple years back.

“Idon’t really like it, but they say you get used to it. I feel a little confined, a little trapped in there,” he said. “When I went to a meeting at Snow Park Lodge last winter, I left my skis and poles outside and hung my helmet on the skis. I went inside hoping someone would steal it.”

Unfortunately no one did. But if you see the guy’s lid at Deer Valley, do him a favor and take it off his hands.

Last week Utah was lit up when something screamed overhead at 80,000 mph. No one reported a nuclear strike or alien landing, so we’re assuming it was a meteor.

Clark Planetarium Director Seth Jarvis said the stony meteorite was probably traveling 80,000 miles an hour when it hit our atmosphere. He said it happened 100 miles up in the air; so despite the brightness, Utah was never in any danger. “These collisions can do damage, but they are extremely rare; and literally once in a century do you observe something that’s actually doing damage,” he said. Witness Andy Bailey said, “Oh, it lit up the whole sky, like almost brighter than the day. It was bright.”

The description is just like when Superman’s pod crashed into earth. I’m sure some people who saw the thing were freaking out that they’d been left behind during the rapture.