If you’re heading to the White Mountains this weekend to hike or enjoy the winter weather, you should prepare accordingly or risk a bill for thousands of dollars.

New Hampshire is one of the few states where people who call for rescue while hiking, climbing or doing other outdoor activities face the possibility of being charged for the effort.

While it doesn’t happen often — New Hampshire Fish and Game Colonel Kevin Jordan said they will only bill those who have been “really outrageously reckless” — it still serves as a deterrent for those who might otherwise leave home unprepared.

“If you forget that outer heavy layer, we’re not going to bill you for it,” Jordan said. “If you don’t have any equipment or any knowledge of what you’re doing and you created a situation where everybody had to be put at risk to come and get you, then that is something that we’re going to bill for.”

Jordan said the department typically conducts between 180 and 200 rescues each year, and of those, around 12 on average will end up with a bill.

The cost for a rescue ranges depending on the circumstances but often runs more than $5,000, especially if an airlift is required. Jordan said many who are charged end up paying less than the total cost through legal settlements, and the department knows most can’t afford a sudden expense of upwards of $10,000.

State law provides no specifics on who can and cannot be charged for a search-and-rescue effort, stating only that those found to have “recklessly or intentionally” created a situation requiring rescue can be held liable for the “reasonable cost” of the rescue. If they do not pay, they might have any license, certification or tag issued by Fish and Game, or even their driver’s license, revoked.

While many of the rescues performed last year involved injuries or unavoidable circumstances, even for experienced hikers, others were the result of hikers failing to bring the proper equipment, starting a hike late in the day so they got stuck in the dark, not researching their route beforehand or ignoring warnings about the difficulty of the trails they chose.

On Dec. 19, two Massachusetts teens were rescued from Mount Monadnock after they started a hike around 5:30 p.m., after dark, according to a news release Fish and Game published at the time. One of the two teens was “heavily intoxicated” and they both fell into a freezing-cold brook, the department said, and were billed for the effort.

Earlier in the month, a pair of hikers had to be rescued after leaving for a 9-mile trek at 1 p.m. without adequate clothing for the temperatures and navigating the trail with only a cellphone. They called for help when one of the hikers suffered a leg injury.

“They lost their composure and would not listen to any advice being given to them,” a department spokesperson wrote at the time. “If hikers cannot adhere to the hiker responsibility code … then they should consider staying home. Rescues of this magnitude and conditions put rescue personnel at great risk.”

Jordan said the most common issue he sees among unprepared hikers is a lack of headlamps or other light sources, generally because people don’t expect to still be out in the mountains after dark. When the sun goes down, they end up having to rely on cellphone flashlights to see, and along with the cold temperatures, their device batteries run down quickly.

In general, unprepared hikers and climbers fail to bring the correct equipment for their trips, such as snowshoes or microspikes, food or just extra layers to protect from the cold. In warmer months, many don’t understand that temperatures above the tree line are far colder, but in the winter, the situation can be even more dire.

“Especially like this weekend, when you’re going to have wind chills down into the 30-below mark, they don’t layer up enough,” Jordan said. “They don’t understand the concept of layered clothing and how important it is for your survival.”

The issue is not limited to travelers from warmer climates, either. Jordan said they tend to rescue locals and people from out-of-state in equal measure.

“People would like to say, ‘Oh, it’s those people from down below that don’t understand,’” he said. “Well, that’s not exactly true.”

When New Hampshire lawmakers first passed the law allowing people to be charged for their rescue in 2008, many residents were concerned it would jeopardize safety by discouraging people from calling for help. But Jordan said that hasn’t been the case. Sometimes, hikers will ask their rescuers when they reach safety if they’ll be considered responsible, but hardly ever before.

“If you’re in a car accident, you’re not worrying about what the ambulance is going to cost. If you’re injured, you want the ambulance and you worry about (the cost) on Monday,” he said. “It’s no different hiking.”

One hiker, who was rescued in early 2025, told New Hampshire Public Radio at the time that he wasn’t sure if he would be billed, but if he wasn’t, he planned to make a donation to thank the rescue team for saving his life.

“My answer was ‘whatever you guys have to do,’” Bart Zienkiewicz, of Naugatuck, Connecticut, told the radio station. “If I see a fine or a bill or whatever you need to call it, I’m happy to be able to pay that bill versus not paying it, of course, if things had gotten really bad and they couldn’t find us.”

How to protect your wallet

Beyond simply being prepared for an excursion, the best way to avoid a bill in the thousands of dollars is to purchase a “Hike Safe” card, a voluntary, state-run program started to raise money for search-and-rescue efforts. The virtual card costs $25 for an individual or $35 for a family and protects the holder from liability for the costs of a rescue while they are participating in any outdoor recreation activities in New Hampshire for the calendar year.

Before the Hike Safe card’s introduction in 2015, search-and-rescue was funded almost entirely by fees from hunting and boating licenses (which also exempt the holder for liability for rescue costs). But Jordan said most of the people being rescued were not the hunters and boaters who were funding the program, so Hike Safe was born.

In its first year, Hike Safe brought in more than $100,000, Jordan said. Last year, the amount was more than $300,000 — not enough to fully fund the program, but a huge help that allows Fish and Game to purchase new equipment for rescue teams.

Technically, a Hike Safe card holder can still be charged if their rescue is caused by particularly egregious behavior, but Jordan said in more than a decade of the card’s existence, that has never happened.

He said he didn’t know how many of the 180 to 200 rescues each year involved people with Hike Safe cards, but estimated that it was a very low percentage of the total.

“If people are going to buy a Hike Safe card because they feel like they want to contribute to the program, those are the people that are usually hardcore hikers,” he said. “They’re prepared and I don’t ever see or hear from them again.”