Did you know these international ski rules and the hefty fines that exist for breaking them?
Were you aware of the €2,000 fine for wearing ski boots after 8pm in one Tirolean resort? Or the €15,000 fine for triggering an avalanche in France? How about having to fork out $500 if caught sharing your ski pass in Colorado? VIP Ski has made a list of the lesser known – sometimes surprising – international ski rules that could land you with a hefty fine. Make sure you’re in the know, so you can avoid committing one of these ski misdemeanours on your next trip to the mountains.
Italy
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- Pay up to €150 for skiing without winter sports insurance
Italy was the first to require winter sports travel insurance for those skiing its slopes. Since 2022, skiing without insurance is fineable of up to €150 and you risk losing your ski pass.
It is an easy one to avoid, with sports cover available to add when picking up your ski pass for around €12 for a week. While insurance is required for skiing, snowboarding and even tobogganing in Italy, it’s not for cross-country skiing.
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- Minors without helmets
Ski helmets are compulsory for anyone under 18 years old in Italy, and those in violation (or their parents) risk a fine of up to €150.
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- Skiing in conservation areas
If you’re caught skiing off-piste in Italy’s nature conservation areas, designed to protect wildlife and prevent avalanches, you risk paying a large fine.
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- Speeding fines
You can be fined as well as have your lift passes confiscated for skiing or snowboarding too fast on Italian ski slopes. While there are no official speed limits or speedometers, reckless skiing is judged on the environment – blue slopes busy with learners are not for showing off your speed skills, using other skiers as your slalom race gates.
USA
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- Drunk skiing
The Colorado Ski Safety Act states you can be fined up to $1,000 if caught on a lift or ski run while under the influence of alcohol. Unlike in the Alps, most restaurants, bars and lodges in US ski resorts are found at the foot of the slopes (though more and more they’re being built mid-mountain in modern resorts).
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- Ski pass sharing
In Colorado, expect to be fined $500 if caught lending someone your ski pass.
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- Backcountry rescues
Another Colorado fine – one of the USA’s best known ski states, home to Aspen, Vail and 40 or more others – Steamboat Springs can charge up to $500 (per person) if they require rescuing in the backcountry.
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- Hit and runs
Leaving the scene of a ski or snowboard crash or collision could mean a $500 fine plus community service in the ski state of Colorado.
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- Ski helmets compulsory
New Jersey resorts dish out $25 fines for ignoring the compulsory ski helmet rule for minors, both skiers and snowboarders, on its slopes and ski lifts. Additional offences cost $100 apiece. Considering that helmets allegedly reduce less serious head injuries on the slopes by 30% to 50%, we wonder if New Jersey resorts report a decrease in concussions and the like since imposing this rule in 2019.
AUSTRIA
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- Ischgl’s boot ban
In 2016 the mayor of Ischgl resort in Austria introduced a €2,000 fine for people walking around the village in their ski boots between the hours of 8pm and 6am. Ischgl is known for its heavy party scene, and this rule was seen as an attempt to encourage apres-goers to head home before the 8pm ski boot curfew.
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- Ski pass sharing
Like in many countries, Austria considers it a serious ski crime to lend a friend your lift pass and can punish it with a fine that could cost you thousands.
FRANCE
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- Causing an avalanche
If you trigger an avalanche in the off-piste in France, you could be fined up to €15,000 and imprisoned for up to a year.
Although there are various examples of skiers prosecuted in recent years, the skiers and snowboarders responsible for the fatal avalanches were in violation of the off-piste ski code.
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- Out-of-bounds skiing
Skiers caught in French nature reserves could be fined €135.
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- Smoking ban
Skiers caught smoking on the slopes or lifts of Les Gets will be fined, since the 2022 smoking ban was introduced in an effort to clean up cigarette butts in the Portes du Soleil resort.
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- Ignoring the skiway code
Pisteurs in France have the right to confiscate your pass for ski misdemeanours, ranging from skiing dangerously to ignoring trail markings or not following ski etiquette.
Do you know the FIS-derived guidelines and ski etiquette?
Canada
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- Speed school
Whistler will confiscate your lift pass for skiing too fast or recklessly in slow zones, and can even make you attend a speed awareness session.
Japan
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- Use the backcountry gates
Unlike in Europe (but more like in the USA) Japan has strict rules about skiing out of resort boundaries. Duck a rope, even just to ski untracked snow a few metres the other side, and you’ll risk having your pass pulled by patrol. Side- and backcountry skiing must be accessed via official ‘gates’.
Following common ski etiquette should help you avoid most fines and ski safely. But the more unusual ones are worth keeping an eye out for… Some even surprised us here at Welove2ski.
These are all very sensible rules and the fines are small by comparison to what illegal behaviour can cause. The problems is there is a lack of cameras to check what is going on and legal cases take years to be concluded especially in France. A friends husband was severely injured when standing at the side of the piste, when a teenager was zipping down at terminal velocity and hit him so hard his hip, leg, ribs and arm were badly broken. The teenager then tried to claim the person he hit caused the accident. The final conclusion of the Court was the teenager was guilty. However, the person hit, a Father of children who were witness to the dreadful incident, had to be medicated of the slopes and helicoptered to the nearest emergency hospital. Even after several years and a lot of rehab, his is not fully recovered. This type of incident is occurring far more frequently but there simply are not enough Piste Patrollers to deal with the ever growing stupid behaviour. Indeed a few years ago whilst skiing back at the end of the day, a teenager trying to do tricks, shot out of the woods on the side of the piste at 90 degrees to the post, at a silly fast speed right in front of me, causing me to turn to avoid him and collect another person in front of me. The Guide stopped and the teenager skied off as fast as he could so as to avoid being held to account.
Sadly there is no way to account for the stupid behaviour of some skiers whose ability is woefully short of the skills they think they have and even their ability to grasp basic facts, so only when the same happens to them will they understand the stupidity of their actions.