STOWE, Vt. — A rescue team that covers Vermont's tallest mountain has been responding to calls in the area for decades, but in the last few years, the organization has seen an alarming rise in calls from inexperienced skiers.
Influenced by social media videos of skiers chasing fresh powder tracks in the backcountry, people are increasingly skiing out of bounds, finding themselves lost in the woods and in need of rescue.
On Nov. 29, Stowe Mountain Rescue responded to a 911 call from a skier and snowboarder lost in the woods on Mount Mansfield. The two 19-year-olds had decided to drive up from New York to ski in the backcountry outside Stowe Mountain Resort after seeing videos of others doing so on social media, according to the rescue team.
''They referenced a TikTok video which had influenced them," Stowe Mountain Rescue chief Jon Wehse said. ''These people are unprepared, they're ill-equipped, they're not in the right shape and they have no spatial awareness of where they are on the mountain, so it causes a problem very quickly.''
Stowe Mountain Rescue now sees around eight missions to help groups of lost skiers per season, up from around three such calls only five years ago, and that doesn't include rescues by Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol in bounds at the resort.
With Vermont already seeing record snowfall this winter, many ski resorts opened early for the season, which has only exacerbated the problem, Wehse said.
''We have intermediate skiers that have no business being in the backcountry,'' he said.
Another problem, Wehse said, is that skiers are getting off the lift at Stowe and blindly following tracks left behind by other skiers that are taking them out of the ski boundary and into areas where they can no longer navigate back to the resort.
