Haley Ells attends college in sunny Southern California, minutes from the ocean and seven hours from Mammoth Mountain Ski Area.

Don’t think for a second, though, that the Bear River High graduate’s presence at last week’s U.S. Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association (USCSA) Nationals in Maine was roughly akin to that of Kwame Nkrumah-Archeampong at this year’s Winter Olympics.

Unlike the skier from the African nation of Ghana who gained a small measure of fame as the “Snow Leopard” in Vancouver, Ells hardly seems out of place on the slopes.

Skiers representing more snowbound colleges at the USCSA Nationals made the mistake of assuming otherwise — and Ells and her UC Santa Barbara teammates left them stunned, winning the women’s freestyle competition.

“It was kind of funny,” Ells said. “I would be talking to people on the chairlift, and they’d be a little surprised that we would come all the way from Santa Barbara, where there’s absolutely no snow, to compete at that level.

“We wound up beating the team from (the University of Colorado). They were not very happy.”

Ells was a major factor in UCSB’s success at the USCSA Nationals, placing second individually in the women’s freestyle competition, which consists of three events — half-pipe, slopestyle and skier-cross. Ells took second in the halfpipe with a score of 47, fifth in slopestyle with a score of 45 and ninth in skier-cross, which involves skiers swooshing down a mountain and jumping across one another’s paths – with a time of 60.939 seconds.

“I was really excited,” Ells said of placing second overall. “It was an awesome feeling. I didn’t expect to do that well, but I did. I’m very proud.”

At Bear River, Ells competed primarily in alpine skiing events, the slalom and giant slalom. She still races in those events, but has found she prefers the less intense atmosphere and freedom of movement that freestyle skiing has to offer. In the slopestyle event, for instance, she gets to slide across long metal “boxes” and thinner metal rails and perform tricks such as spinning or grabbing different parts of her skis as she jumps off.

“Freestyle has a different vibe,” Ells said. “It’s not as high-strung as racing.

“I love racing — I’m a competitive person and it’s fun — but (freestyle) is more of an individual thing, instead of racing, which is pretty cutthroat.”

Ells only spends about half of each week in Santa Barbara, where she juggles a 16-unit course load at UCSB with her job at a local Chili’s restaurant. She attends school all day Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — “six straight hours of class,” she said — before heading up to Mammoth Mountain on Thursday night.

She and her UCSB teammates stay at a team-owned condominium near the resort, where the Gauchos practice and compete in Southern California Collegiate Snowsport Conference competitions before heading back to Santa Barbara on Sunday night.

“It’s a seven-hour drive, but it’s completely worth it,” Ells said. “Mammoth has amazing snow.”

Ells initially thought about attending school in a state with a more wintry climate, but decided to remain in California to stay closer to her family.

An economics major who is minoring in geology, Ells plans to ski competitively for one more season, but has no plans to ski — other than recreationally — beyond the college level.

“I’m fortunate enough to have my parents paying for me to go to school to get an economics degree,” she said, “so I should probably use that.”

Still, Ells said she will never completely walk away from the sport she loves.

“I hope to ski for the rest of my life,” Ells said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s competitive as long as I’m on the hill, in one piece, skiing.”