Warning tickets remind Banff skiers to buy park passes

Hundreds of skiers at Sunshine Village were greeted with warning tickets on their windshields after hitting the slopes on New Year's Day, if they didn't have their park passes on display.

Passes are required for everyone who stops in the mountain parks, and range from $9.80 for adult daily entries to $136.40 for family discovery passes that provide entry to all national parks in the country for a year.

Greg Danchuk, visitor experience manager for Banff National Park, said the tickets are actually part of a long-standing mobile gate program that has officials patrol busy areas.

"All we can do is this notice of violation. We ask people to please go to a visitor's centre. And we get about 40 per cent of those back, which we think is a really good number. We'd like even more, but that is a fair return on it, because we can't be everywhere all the time," he said.

Danchuk said the 140 notices represented about 14 per cent of the cars parked there that day, which is fairly average for ski hills in the park.

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Park pass funds support services to help visitors have a great experience, Danchuk said, and the warning tickets technically called notices of violation are just friendly reminders to pay that fee.

Repeat offenders will be referred to law enforcement, who follow up with the vehicle's owner.

Checks for parking passesare conducted at random around the park.

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