By Dale Bass
Kamloops This Week
Sun Peaks Resort will not be seeking repayment from skiers and snowboarders who needed to be rescued during the holiday period last month.
The resort has a policy to recover its costs if it has to use resources in a search outside its ski-area boundaries.
Sun Peaks general manager Darcy Alexander said the skiers and snowboarders will be asked to use what happened to them to help educate the public on the risks of leaving outside the boundaries and being unprepared.
Alexander is hopeful those rescued will also make donations to Kamloops Search and Rescue (KSR), which handled the bulk of the searches.
KSR is a volunteer group and its spokesman, Alan Hobler, already said its members do not believe in charging people to be rescued.
During the Christmas period, KSR was involved in a search for a trio of 14-year-olds who had gone missing, locating them in an area rated high for avalanche.
KSR also found two sisters who had become lost trying to go from one part of the resort to another, an American woman who had become separated from her ski partner by a grove of trees, ending up in an unfamiliar area, and three other skiers who had become lost in the back country.
Hobler said it was unusual for the teams to be called out for help that many times in such a short period.