Father and son billed for backcountry rescue

[CD]

Father and son billed for backcountry rescue

Last Updated: Friday, January 4, 2008 | 11:46 PM ET
CBC News

A father and son have been asked to pay $2,500 for triggering a dangerous search and rescue after they snowboarded out of bounds at Vancouver's Grouse Mountain ski area last weekend.

Janusz Gryko told CBC News Friday he made a mistake taking his teenage son, Jeremy, into the backcountry but said the invoice is unfair.

"If they're supposed to charge me for something, they're supposed to be fair to everybody else," he said.

"There was no line or sign on the path. You can just walk in and go wherever you want," Gryko said.

He said they were on a path and where they should have gone to their right, they went left instead. The route they chose soon got them into trouble and they ended up spending six hours in a gully in a high-risk avalanche zone.

"It started getting very steep," Jeremy Gryko said. "The snow got deeper. It was just hard to get around."

Grouse Mountain, which is in North Vancouver, issued the fine and took away the pair's season's passes Friday morning. However, the resort has no legal recourse if the Grykos choose not to pay the fine.

The fine, which is to be donated to the North Shore Search and Rescue — a team consisting of about 40 volunteers — will cover the amount the resort spent on personnel and equipment used in the search, said operations manager Erik Bowkett.

"This is meant to send a very strong message because it seems all the messages out there right now aren't enough and people are still doing it," he told CBC News Friday.

"We figured if it's going to hit them in the pocketbook, maybe people will start listening and stop going into the uncontrolled area and stop putting all the good people that have to rescue them in harm's way."

This is the second time Grouse Mountain has issued a fine under similar circumstances, he said.

An individual skier was billed after venturing out of bounds in the same uncontrolled area around the same time last year, Bowkett said. That rescue involved helicopters and RCMP, as well as personnel and equipment from Grouse Mountain. The fine was recovered.

Grouse Mountain hopes other ski resorts will also start charging people for out-of-bounds rescues to deter adventure seekers.

Both Gryko and his son said they won't make the same mistake again and what they went through should be punishment enough.

"We were hungry. We were cold. We thought we were dead," Jeremy Gryko said.

Full story here...

[2R]

Stupid is as stupid does

So who has never gone off the beaten path ???

[altiplano]

/

[mellow_pilot]

...famous last words.

[Dash-Ate]