Sales of the state’s Hike Safe card are booming this year, but so are the number of backwoods rescues of hikers who aren’t carrying the cards, an indication that the program doesn’t seem to be making people more careful when they head into the wild.
“This is just from my experience, but last year we rescued one lady with a Hike Safe card. Since then, I’m not aware of anybody who had one,” said Lt. Wayne Saunders, chief of the New Hampshire Fish and Game office in the North Country town of Lancaster.
The Hike Safe card is a voluntary purchase ($25 per person or $35 per family for one year) that provides a sort of insurance against being charged for outdoor rescues due to negligence. A charge may still be placed if the holder is deemed to have acted recklessly with “extreme departure from ordinary care” when “a high degree of danger is apparent.”
In 2015, the Hike Safe card’s first year, the state sold a total of 2,800 of them. As of the end of May 2016, it has already sold 2,545, bringing in about $67,000, said Col. Kevin Jordan, chief of the law enforcement division of Fish and Game.
Data isn’t available for rescues this year but Jordan said it does seem that there have been more in 2016, partly because of the odd weather – a warm winter followed by sharp swings in temperature.
“The mountains above treeline went back to winter in late spring, which caught a number of people off guard. A number of rescues for people that weren’t prepared. You don’t think of ice picks and crampons when it’s May,” he said.
The Hike Safe card was created largely as an income source for Fish and Game, which has struggled with the rising cost of rescues, and a way to derive some income from people involved in the increasingly popular wilderness activities such as kayaking, hiking, back-country skiing.
The department’s income is derived largely from a $1 fee when people register motor boats, ATVs and snowmobiles – yet its rescue costs are increasingly driven by people who do not use motorized vehicles.
“Sixty percent of rescues are for hikers and climbers,” Jordan said.
Fish and Game says it averages about 180 missions a year, costing about $350,000, which creates a budget shortfall of “about $160,000 each year.”
That’s part of the reason the department has become more aggressive about charging people who get rescued – a charge that a Hike Safe card can avoid.
Data isn’t available for how many of 2016’s rescuees have been billed, but Jordan said the department typically bills for about 10 rescues a year, and “we’re on par to do 10 this year.”
The department doesn’t bill if a fatality is involved, or if medical issues led to the rescue.
Bills can vary widely depending on how many people were needed and what equipment was used – a helicopter is particularly expensive – but they run about $4,000. It collects on about 60 percent of its bills, Jordan said.
“We’re doing more and more payment plans to help people pay,” he said.
The name of the card reflects the Hike Safe program, jointly developed by Fish and Game and the White Mountain National Forest to help people be prepared before they enter the wilderness.
That’s deliberate, Jordan said: “It’s an educational tool.”
Still, he admits that like many educational tools, it is most embraced by those who really don’t need the reminder.
“Yes, it’s probably (true)
. . . that people who know (safe hiking) are the ones that are buying it. It’s like speed limits. The ones who really pay attention to it are those who wouldn’t speed even if there weren’t limits,” he said.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
