Pagosa Springs, CO – Randall “Davey” Pitcher, owner of Colorado’s Wolf Creek ski area, has been sentenced to five years of supervised probation, 500 hours of community service involving search and rescue, and a $5,000 fine for conducting avalanche and ski patrol training last winter in an unauthorized section of San Juan National Forest.

While the fine was the maximum permitted, Pitcher could have faced up to six months in a federal prison at his sentencing hearing yesterday.

Pitcher, 52, had been ferrying ski patrollers by helicopter to National Forest land located five to 15 miles from Wolf Creek’s boundaries when an avalanche near Conejos Peak this past March killed Wolf Creek patroller Colin Drew Sutton, 38.

Pitcher’s family has operated Wolf Creek ski area since 1976. He had earlier been granted a two-month permit to explore helicopter skiing opportunities in the area, but that permit expired in 2011.

On Tuesday, U.S. Federal District Court Magistrate David West handed down the sentence that was more severe than prosecutors had asked for. Pitcher had faced five misdemeanor charges filed by the Forest Service, three involving conducting unauthorized avalanche training on federal land and two for unauthorized use of explosives. After first entering not guilty pleas to each charge in September, he plead guilty last month to a single charge of conducting search and rescue training on public land without a permit. The remaining charges were dismissed as part of the plea deal.

In September, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined Wolf Creek $14,000 in connection with Sutton’s death. Wolf Creek ski patrol director Scott Kay also died in an inbounds avalanche in 2010, leading to an OSHA fine for that incident as well.