Cost of hiking in NH

[Tom Murphy]

No one ones anyone a rescue, so they injured hiker did not endanger anyone's life. The rescuers chose to take the risk to help, just the the injured hiker chose to take the risk to hike.

If getting paid is so important to the rescuers, then they should quote the hiker a price before providing services and get payment in advance.

I personally would (and have) volunteered to participate searches and rescues, without expectation of being paid, or even recovering my own personal costs. I consider my costs donations. I don't care if the person needing the rescue is stupid or not, was negligent or not or is in some other way deserving.

I volunteer to protect human life, which has intrinsic value apart from the circumstances of how it is endangered. I also hope people would have the same regard for my life, if I ever needed a rescue.

In New Hampshire, the NH Fish & Game has a legal responsible for the SAR. So it becomes a budget issue for that department and NH has a long tradition of user fees.

The local NH SAR volunteers are not paid, do not want to be paid, and have been very vocal against the SAR fines.

[Tom Murphy]

Please note. You have to be found negligant or reckless to be fined.

[magneto]

I think we should offer a subscription to S&R services. You pay a fee, each year. If you have an account that is in good standing, you get service. If not, someone else has to pay first, cleared funds. Then it does not matter whether you are negligent or not.

[Don H]

I drive to NH on the interstate in a car with bald tires, a tire blows out and my car ends up smashing into a guardrail, the highway patrol stops an sees I am injured so an ambulance takes me to the ER, the police then call a tow truck to pull my car off the highway....who pays for the ambulance, the ER, the towtruck and getting my car fixed, the State or me?

As for the ambo it depends. In my county there is no charge, it is tax payer funded service. In other counties near me the ambo service bills the auto insurance. If the get paid fine, if not then they don't pursue it.

Auto insurance pays for the guardrail, tow, ER, repairs, etc.

The difference with the injured hiker and your car accident is that most hikers don't carry hiking insurance where as most states require car insurance. It's intersting that New Hampshire is one of only two states (the other is Wisconsin) that does not require auto insurance.

[Coffee]

I ended up having to defer the trip but while researching Switzerland, I found that search and rescue is never free and usually very expensive. People often buy special insurance ahead of time to cover some of the costs. That sounds like what the $25 program is attempting to imitate. It doesn't seem all that expensive to me but I have mixed feelings about charging at all except when negligence is so obvious that there wouldn't be much disagreement on a site like this one.