Theft of services

Skiers poaching on a trail system for which they have not paid a daily or seasonal use fee are technically guilty of theft of services. The New Hampshire statute reads as follows:

TITLE LXII
CRIMINAL CODE

CHAPTER 637
THEFT

Section 637:8

    637:8 Theft of Services. – 
I. A person commits theft if he obtains services which he knows are available only for compensation by deception, threat, force, or any other means designed to avoid the due payment therefor. "Deception" has the same meaning as in RSA 637:4, II, and "threat" the same meaning as in RSA 637:5, II.
II. A person commits theft if, having control over the disposition of services of another, to which he knows he is not entitled, he diverts such services to his own benefit or to the benefit of another who he knows is not entitled thereto.
III. As used in this section, "services" includes, but is not necessarily limited to, labor, professional service, public utility and transportation services, restaurant, hotel, motel, tourist cabin, rooming house and like accommodations, the supplying of equipment, tools, vehicles, or trailers for temporary use, telephone or telegraph service, gas, electricity, water or steam, admission to entertainment, exhibitions, sporting events or other events for which a charge is made.
IV. This section shall not apply to the attachment of private equipment to residential telephone lines unless the telephone company can prove that the attached equipment will cause direct harm to the telephone system. Attached equipment which is registered with the public utilities commission shall not require a protective interconnecting device. If the telephone company cites this section in its directories or other customer informational material, said company shall duplicate the entire section verbatim therein.
Source. 1971, 518:1. 1977, 175:1, eff. Aug. 7, 1977.

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While skiers are seldom  prosecuted for the offense, it is in the background if a poacher pushes the point when apprehended by a trail patroller.

A bike rider poaching grooming on a ski trail network hits into a bit of a gray area. They're not skiers, stealing the work of the trail designers, builders, groomers, and stewards. They weren't attracted by the full value of the product for the users it was designed to serve. They just like it because it's packed down for them.

One comment on my previous post, "Parasitic Fat Bikers," stated, "Fatbikers groom several of their own trails and complain of postholers, yet they will still ride and enjoy. Let's all just enjoy." My answer is that the injustice you suffer on your trails does not excuse and invite the injustice you perpetrate on the cross-country ski trails. People who don't ski on performance skis have no way to assess the effect their tire tracks might have. On an ideal day, you might see little or no imprint. On a less than ideal day, there will be ruts and ridges, even from a "5-inch tire with 10 psi," as someone put it in another discussion. Once a trail system is thrown open, even with some restrictions, riders will take it for granted. With use comes abuse.

If the trail system charges a bike fee, riders will feel entitled, when they invited themselves to use facilities that were established before many of them were born. The riders are shoving their way in because they want to, and they think they've found a legal loophole that will allow it. And they may be right. The fact that it is bullying, selfish, and pushy does not bother them. The fact that they have paid nothing for the building, maintenance, and grooming of the trails does not bother them. We're grooming them anyway, right? How is it different from riding on the road?

When I ski a hiking trail on my backcountry skis, I expect to see marks from other users: snowshoe prints, postholes, dog tracks, other ski tracks. If conditions are hard frozen, I won't be on skis. And a lot of the time I don't use a trail at all. I'm bushwhacking in search of hidden attractions, or just to get away from as many signs of humanity as possible. It's been decades since I skied on any kind of snow machine trail. The last time I did ski on a snowmobile trail was back in the late 1980s in Sandwich Notch. A line of snowmobilers came ripping past me right off the tip of my elbow in a classic intimidation pass. I decided that whatever quasi-grooming I found as a result of snowmobile passage was not worth the encounters with motorist assholes. I put up with enough of that on the roads.

I've never encountered the "groomed fat bike trails" mentioned by the commenter. If I did, I would turn away to avoid contact. I am not a parasite. I may be an underachieving slug, but I try to carry my own weight.

I also try not to tell people how to do the things they're good at. I may decry the fact that they do them at all, but I don't presume that I have noticed something that they have not, or counsel them to lighten up and let me have my way when they seem to be lodging a reasonable or heartfelt objection.