A slew of ski rescues this season has spurred a bill to impose a $500 fine and a criminal trespass charge on backcountry skiers who wind up in trouble.
The Vermont State Police has participated in 15 rescues this ski season, which involved a total of 50 victims. Forty-eight of those individuals were rescued from the Killington and Pico resorts in Rutland County.
The sponsor of the bill, Sen. Kevin Mullin, represents Rutland County. Mullin told the committee that legislation offers “one added tool in the toolbox to try to prevent people that aren’t prepared for backcountry skiing from doing it.”
Opposition to the bill quickly crystallized. Representatives from the Department of Public Safety, among other opponents, say the bill would discourage people from calling for help and stifle the ski industry.
The bill skidded to a stop in the Senate Judiciary Committee today. One committee member, Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, said, “If we start criminalizing the behavior we all think is dumb … we’d have an endless avalanche of legislation.”
Keith Flynn, the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that under the proposed legislation, “people will stop and think twice” before calling for help, and that hesitation could create more dire situations.
In response to the recent string of rescues, Flynn said his department began working with ski areas and the Vermont Ski Areas Association to ramp up education efforts about safe skiing. Since they began this initiative on Jan. 1, troopers have only had to rescue one skier.
The committee agreed to hold off on legislation until they’ve seen the long-term impact of the education initiative.
Concerns about impacting the ski industry loomed large during the committee meeting. Mullin began by saying, “I’m not trying to do anything that would be deleterious to the ski industry because the ski industry is the backbone to our economy.”
David Goodman, the author of “Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast: 50 Classic Ski Tours in New England and New York,” said backcountry skiing is one of the few areas of growth in the ski industry.
“We seem to be on a 20-year cycle of criminalizing backcountry skiing,” Goodman said. A bill introduced during the 1990s, he said, would have made skiing out of bounds a misdemeanor offense.
Ski area representatives also expressed apprehension. Current law allows ski areas to bill skiers for the costs incurred by rescue groups. Mullin’s legislation applies to people who venture away from a ski area’s designated trails.
Parker Riehle, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association, cast doubt on the effectiveness of the fine. “We are not sure this is the answer,” Riehle said.
Ski areas have had nominal success in billing people for rescues (Killington has been largely unsuccessful) and, while it would be helpful to establish a uniform billing procedure, Riehle said, “We would not want to inhibit backcountry skiing.”
A subtext during much of the testimony was that those who are rescued are novices and non-Vermonters.
The offenders are concentrated in a “hard to reach” demographic — 18- to 25-year-old out-of-state single males, according to Riehle.
The issue may be resurrected in two House bills. H.294 would make ski areas liable for rescue costs but would allow them to raise lift ticket costs to defray the expense. H.334 is similar to the bill introduced in the Senate — it makes skiers subject to a criminal trespass charge and a $500 fine. That fine goes up to $1,000 for offenders who need a second rescue in a six-month period.
Correction: This article initially misstated the title of David Goodman’s book.
