I don't know about Canada (where the original article was from), but in the US I think most ski slopes are on public land. The forest service leases it to the ski companies I believe.

The problem (IMHO) is - how do you charge the idiots who basically brought it on themselves, but give the responsible people who happened to have an accident a break on the cost?

When I go hiking it's generally on public land, on established trails, with at least one other person. I leave detailed maps of where I'm going at home. The trails I intend to take are highlighted and areas where we may deviate slightly (like walking around a destination lake where there's no trail) are cross-hatch highlighted as an area we could possibly be in. And "will never go past" boundaries are marked (often times these are the ridges that define a mountain drainage). I take all kinds of self-help gear (much learned from this site!), and leave a gear list of what I'm carrying at home. Every year I buy a fishing license even though I rarely fish, because some of that money goes to SAR activities here in Colorado.

So if I fell and broke my ankle I might need some help getting out. My wife would contact the authorities based on the plans I left her. I would be willing to pay the SAR folks a reasonable amount for their work in helping me if they asked for payment. I would look at how much payment they were requesting vs. the amount of work the rescue actually required. If the effort they put out was way out of line with what could have reasonably be predicted as needed, I would hesitate at paying some outrageous sum. $15,000 may be outrageous for some situations, but be a great bargain for others. If it took eight guys 4 hours to hike up and haul me down a maintained trail in a stretcher, then that might be worth several thousand dollars on top of the SAR money that comes from my fishing license. But $15,000 for that effort would sound a little steep. If they spend the entire night out looking and had to put their lives at risk to help me, $15,000 sounds really cheap to me. The total bill should depend on if the SAR folks were already funded for the effort by other means (e.g., my fishing license fees - that's like a mini insurance policy).

If I knowingly broke the rules - skied out of bounds, etc. - then I'd expect to pay the real cost of my rescue. I wouldn't put myself into a stupid situation like that in the first place, but others obviously do.