At the Sun Peaks Resort near Kamloops, B.C., guests are urged to relax and hit the slopes.
But for those thrill-seekers who decide to challenge the rules of the mountain and embark on an out-of-bounds skiing adventure, the resort has one message: Enter at your own risk - or you may take a financial hit.
Two Vancouver teenagers learned that lesson the hard way last week after they decided to ski out of bounds and got lost overnight. They have been told they might have to pay up to $15,000 for the rescue.
Harrison Blacklock, 18, and Alex Smyth, 19, skied past the resort's marked boundaries on the west bowl of Tod Mountain on Dec. 5, and were eventually found by helicopter after a large search-and-rescue team spent a combined total of about 250 hours looking for them.
The popularity of out-of-bounds and backcountry skiing in Canada is at an all-time high, say ski and resort industry officials. And it's increasingly common for adventurers who knowingly break a resort's boundary rules to foot the bill if they have to be rescued.
Billing thrill-seekers is part of a little-discussed policy followed by most private resorts or search teams forced to conduct expensive and risky rescue missions to find daredevils who get lost or injured on an out-of-bounds or backcountry skiing adventure.
"The message out there is to make sure if you require self-rescue, are you in a position or could you be charged for the rescue?" said Christopher Nicolson, president of Tourism Sun Peaks. "There's been instances where the resort mountain has charged the individuals."
At Whistler Blackcomb Ski Resort in British Columbia, officials routinely charge for finding wayward guests. "We charge for helicopter time within our area," said Bernie Protsch, ski patrol manager on Whistler Mountain. "We'll charge for Ski-Doos, we'll charge for dog handlers, we'll also charge for personnel."
More people are seeking to experience the thrill and beauty of making tracks in the fresh powder of uncharted territory, Mr. Protsch said.
"The lure of the backcountry is such that people are definitely going out in greater numbers than we've ever seen before," he said. "It's a beautiful place to go."
While federal and provincial search teams have a strict policy of rescuing people for free, the rules are much different in cases where private ski resorts or search teams are called in to look for guests who may be in danger.
"Altruism goes only so far until eventually you say, 'This has to be compensated for,' " said Cyril Shokoples, owner of Rescue Dynamics, an Edmonton-based company that specializes in mountain-rescue training. "If people leave an area that's posted and they knowingly go out of bounds, well, you should be prepared for the risk as well as the rewards."
Many ski resorts urge people not to go out of bounds, particularly if they aren't sufficiently prepared for the possibility of getting lost.
In last week's incident, Sun Peaks said the teens may be able to work their bill off by warning others of the dangers of out-of-bounds skiing.
"There's an opportunity in this case to actually do some community service around the safety element of it," Mr. Nicolson said. He added that the resort has not yet decided whether or not to charge the teens.
But in many cases, wayward skiers who find themselves in trouble can expect to be slapped with a bill for helicopter, snowmobile and personnel rescue that can range anywhere from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars.
In 2005, four men each received a $4,200 bill after search teams had to scour an out-of-bounds area near a Vermont ski resort looking for them.
In 2003, a skier who went past an Oregon resort's boundaries was charged more than $4,000 for the recovery mission.
And in 2002, a skier and a snowboarder rescued from an out-of-bounds area near an Idaho resort were billed $8,000.
While outdoor daredevils welcome their rescuers, they don't always welcome the bill.
"People are always grateful when you literally save their lives, but quite often they're reluctant to come up and pay for things," said Mr. Protsch, who has been involved with numerous rescues in the past few years. "But they do."
