With the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games just completed, interest in skiing and snowboarding in America is peaking, according to national ski officials. Unfortunately, this interest also is bringing more reckless skiiers/snowboarders to snowy mountains, oftentimes resulting in derring-do that costs lives and many thousands of dollars. Each year many skiiers/snowboarders ignore ski resort warnings and venture off into forbidden ski terrority, sometimes with fatal results. And, for those who do survive the ordeal, many find themselves facing relatively huge bills from resorts and/or rescue organizations. The following story details some of these incidents.

Chris Dicicco, 23, of California City, Calif., had no idea that when he went snow skiing at Steamboat Springs, Colo., on Jan. 1, 2002, he would wind up facing a $1,900 bill and a trespass charge.

College buddies Ben Rosenthal, Newport, R. I., and Matt Berlin, Cambridge, Ma., were unaware that when they went skiing Jan. 7, 2002, at the Jay Peak Resort in Vermont the trip could cost them tens of thousands of dollars.

And when three teenage boys had to be rescued after venturing into an out-of-bounds area at the Kelowna Big White Ski Resort in British Columbia they were handed a $3,900 bill by their rescuers.

They are among the many hellbent-for-adventure daredevil skiers/snowboarders/snowmobilers who are finding out about the high cost of getting lost.

Increasingly across America and Canada (and many European countries) search-and-rescue organizations are requiring stranded out-of-bounds snowriders to make restitution to their rescuers.

Several U. S. states, including Colorado, Vermont, New Hampshire, Washington, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, have enacted rules permitting such restitution.

Bill Stenger, president of Jay Peak Resort, said the cost of the recent Vermont rescue will top $120,000. "It was a two-day operation, the largest and most expensive ski rescue in Vermont history. We were lucky to get them (Rosenthal, Berlin) out alive. We had two helicopters flying six or seven hours and we had the state and National Guard involved. These men clearly skied right past a gate at which we had very visible signage prohibiting them from going into that back country."

Stenger said, "We are not sure how much of the rescue costs we are going to ask them to be accountable for. We are hopeful they will recognize their responsibility and donate several thousand dollars to the rescue teams involved. If they don't we will take one legal step at a time from there. Vermont law says snowriders are liable for all expenses of search and rescue if they ski off the open designated trails beyond the boundaries."

Many officials across the country appear to be losing patience with snowriders who recklessly seek thrills by going off unauthorized into rugged backcountry terrain in search of unbroken snow.

Now, many are asking such daredevil skiers to fess up the costs of having to pluck them from such wilderness. Also, some health insurance companies are telling such snowriders they are not going to cover them for such derring-do injuries.

Routt County, Colo., Sheriff John Warner, whose department on average leads the rescue of more than a dozen lost rope-ducking snowriders each year, says too many snowriders venture into backcountry "stupidly and carelessly. Often, inexperienced people take ill-advised chances and wind up dying in avalanches or from freezing. And rescuers are often placed in jeopardy of their own lives."

Colorado passed a law requiring a surcharge on state hunting and fishing licenses, with the extra money going into a search and rescue fund. But the law requires rescue organizations to first seek restitution from victims or their families before applying for state reimbursement.

Many times snowriders who ignore ski resort boundaries journey off to adjacent property owned by the U. S. Forest Service or National Parks Service. Parks Service records show the service spends about $3 million a year on rescue operations nationally.

One of the more controversial ski rescues occured a few years ago at Aspen in Colorado when "The Aspen Seven" _ a group of men and women _ skied off into the wilderness and an approaching blizzard. They got lost and a rescue effort that involved helicopters, airplanes and dozens of ground rescuers was launched, costing about $20,000. Pitkin County Sheriff Bob Braudis told the media at the time, "When seven yuppies head into the backcountry in the midst of the worst avalanche conditions in 100 years, it looks a lot like arrogance."

"We live in a society where people want to experience the benefits of high adventure but then force somebody else to pay the costs when things go wrong. It's time for some self-responsibility," University of Minnesota professor Leo McAvoy told the Los Angeles Times.

A Maine man who worked with search and rescue teams for about six years in Washington State says the idea of charging victims for their rescue is oftentimes the right thing.

"This is standard practice in Washington and Oregon. During my experience, search and rescue costs were billed to roughly 20 per cent of the parties we rescued. Seem stiff? Well, maybe. But I've pulled too many bodies out of the backside of a mountain to believe that any attempt to defer this dangerous, indeed reckless, behavior is not too harsh," said the rescuer, who wished to remain anonymous.

Americans planning to ski in Europe should be aware that several European countries treat off-piste skiers non too kindly.

Three British skiers who went out onto a slope at the Val d'Isere resort in France, despite the area being closed because of the threat of an avalanche, wound up getting buried up to their chests in an avalanche. The men were rescued and then hauled into court on charges of endangering the lives of their rescuers. A few days later 12 people were killed in a snow avalanche at the French resort of Chamonix.

Alan Brook-Dean, 49, of England was killed in a snow avalanche in Switzerland in 1999 after he allegedly ignored flashing lights and warnings printed in five languages and slipped under the ropes to ski an off-piste area with friends at the Verbier resort. Air Glaciers, the firm conducting the rescue attempt (with four helicopters, seven tracker dogs and 60 ground personnel), claimed Brook-Dean triggered the avalanche and billed his family for about $25,000 in rescue costs. Skier Stuart Page of Victoria, Australia, became lost in heavy snow at Victoria's Mount Hotham and spent the night in a makeshift shelter before being rescued the next day. He later donated $13,000 to the resort's Snow Safe educational program.

The Loveland, Colo., ski resort came up with a novel idea to handle punishment for some teenagers caught snowboarding out of bounds at the resort. The teens were offered a choice of paying a $300 fine or volunteering for an experiment in avalanche rescue. Stephen Saletta, 17, and Andrew Saletta, 15, of Monument (with parental approval) agreed to be buried alive under a small avalanche triggered by plastic explosives at the 12,000-foot level. The teens were provided a small dugout breathing space before the snow covered them. They also had radios to call rescuers if anything went wrong. Dogs were called in and sniffed them out, with rescuers digging them out safe and sound after about 32 minutes.

But dozens of others are not so fortunate each year, with deaths from off-piste snowriding averaging about 30 per year, according to a study by the Shealey-Ettlinger-Johnson firm for the American Society for Testing and Materials of Philadelphia.

Those considering taking a shot at leaving the controlled trails of a ski resort might want to mull this message on a sign atop the Killington resort in Vermont: "These woods will be as dark and lonely tonight as they were 200 years ago."

This story was published on 15 May 2002.