A Montana law defining the risks of skiing would be amended to include tree wells under a bill sent to Gov. Steve Bullock Friday after handily passing the House.

Sponsored by Sen. Brian Hoven, R-Great Falls, Senate Bill 164 modifies the state code definition of the risks of skiing that outlines that skiers “accept all legal responsibility for injury or damage of any kind to the extent that the injury or damage results from inherent dangers and risks of skiing.”

Tree wells are hollowed areas or areas of less densely packed snow at the base of trees that are surrounded by deep snow. The odds of surviving after falling into a tree well, particularly head-first, are low.

Specifically, the list of inherent snow risks would include machine-made snow “of any depth or accumulation, including but not limited to any depth of accumulation around or near trees or snowmaking equipment.”

Whitefish Mountain Resort currently is involved in a lawsuit by the parents of a German exchange student who died after skiing into a tree well in 2010.

Other tree-well deaths on Big Mountain occurred in 1978, 1979, 1990 and 2014.  

Another change included in the bill refers to avalanche dangers, setting the expectation that avalanches are not an inherent risk if they occur on machine-groomed ski trails. Currently, that language applies more broadly to “designated ski trails.”

The bill passed the House 92-7 after passing the Senate 48-0 in January.

Reporter Samuel Wilson can be reached at 758-4407 or by email at [email protected]