HELP!: A police helicopter unit rescues hikers trapped in the Xilongmen Valley in Beijing's suburban Mentougou District on April 5, 2011 (CFP)

In 2006, a local woman with the online name Shoushou in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, sued a hiking organizer and other participants as she almost died in a flood while nobody else even offered a hand to help.

It was the first dispute on the responsibilities of outdoor enthusiasts in China. Shoushou received 163,000 yuan ($26,209) from the organizer and 48,000 yuan ($7,718) from the other participants in compensation.

"Even if the participants sign the liability waiver online before the activities, if the organizer charts a hazardous route, or the other members with the ability to help but do not do so to someone in danger, they all should bear legal responsibility," said Zhu Zicheng, an attorney with Dragon Town Law Firm in Chongqing.

Rescue responsibility

On December 12, 2012, 18 students from Fudan University in Shanghai got lost along an unexplored route up the Huangshan Mountain in east China's Anhui Province. The local government spared no effort to save them and a 24-year-old rescuer fell to his death during the mission.

In 2011, when 14 people were trapped in the Siguniang Mountains in southwestern Sichuan Province, the local government assigned more than 1,000 rescue workers to the search, at a cost of more than 130,000 yuan ($20,903).

There are no uniform regulations on who should pay for rescue work, say Beijing's firefighting authorities. Firefighting authorities are responsible for providing rescue services in most places throughout China. So far, none of the individuals rescued have offered to pay.

Jin Zhao, chief of the Green Wild Expedition Team, a Beijing-based outdoor sporting organization, revealed that only one in 10 of participants buy insurance before embarking, and determining responsibility for compensation could be very complicated in the event of a disaster.

Once climbing mountains in Hubei Province, Jin had an allergic reaction to local flora but the insurance company refused to compensate. "The insurance clauses were not clear and it is not well regulated," he said. "Therefore even if it is very cheap to buy insurance, which is only 20 yuan ($3.22) or less, few people will actually purchase it."

Bai Xiaoyong, a lawyer at the Beijing Bosheng Law Firm, said that except for the Mountaineering Regulations issued by China's General Administration of Sport in 2003, there are no regulations on mountain climbing, which is far behind the times as the number of outdoor enthusiasts has already reached 50 million, according to Xinhua News Agency. Even the 2003 regulations only put restrictions on climbing mountains higher than 5,000 meters in Tibet Autonomous Region and 3,500 meters in other places in China.

Zhang Zhijian, Secretary General of the CMA, however, has a different idea. "Although the number of people killed or injured in outdoor activities has increased in recent years, the number of participants has increased even more. "So far, I don't think the country is ready to make a specific law just for outdoor activities, and no other country has done this either."

Zhang cites regional diversity as the reason. "It is more practical for local authorities to make their own regulations according to geographical features and potential risks. For example, for the Siguniang Mountains Scenic Area, if every visitor registers his/her route and length of time needed to traverse prior to embarking, it is easier to spot lost people when accidents do happen," Zhang said.

Regarding the cost of rescue efforts, Zhang thinks it should be shared by the government, hiking organizers and individual participants. Those who are informed of risks yet carry on unprepared should pay a larger proportion.

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