Four skiers and snowboarders who ducked under the out-of-bounds rope at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort and entered an area under an emergency closure have been cited after two became lost and needed rescue.

Grand Teton National Park announced recently that Andrew Richards, age 24, and Ruth Schwietert, 28, both of Jackson, Wyoming, Natalie Burns, 32, of Breckenridge, Colorado, and Joseph Higgins, 25, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, each received two citations requiring a mandatory court appearance.

The citations are for violating an emergency boundary closure and disorderly conduct with creation of a hazardous condition. Each citation carries a maximum penalty of up to $5,000 fine and/or six months in jail.

On Feb. 28, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort called the Teton Interagency Dispatch to report that two skiers were lost in Granite Canyon. The canyon, just north of the resort, is inside Grand Teton National Park. At the time, the area was under an emergency closure due to extreme, hazardous avalanche conditions.

As they skied into the canyon, two members of the party became lost and two were able to ski back to the resort. The lost skiers contacted a friend by cellphone. The friend contacted the ski patrol who contacted park dispatch.

“A Teton County Search and Rescue helicopter conducted an aerial reconnaissance, using location information communicated by the lost individuals,” a park news release said. “Due to sunset and diminished light, it was challenging to confirm the location.”

At 8:30 p.m. — after dark — three park rangers began skiing into Granite Canyon from the resort following GPS coordinates provided by the lost skiers.

“The area is in a high avalanche and hazard area, including steep terrain, numerous trees and cliffs,” the park said. “The rangers utilized safety practices that involved ropes and belay systems as they moved down the canyon.”

The pair were located in the Spock Chutes area about 11 p.m. and the entire group climbed back up the mountain to the ski area boundaries. They arrived unharmed at the base of the resort at 2:45 a.m.

Yellowstone National Park staff were killing fish to make room for natives.

The park is continuing a project to eliminate nonnative fish from the upper Gibbon River drainage and eventually reintroduce native fish to streams in that area. The project is part of an overall strategy against nonnative trout species that were introduced into the region decades ago.

Park biologists used rotenone — a fish toxin — to kill nonnative rainbow and brook trout in the streams. Below the treatment area, biologists added potassium permanganate to the water to remove the effects of rotenone so it doesn’t impact downstream waters, according a park news release.

“Rotenone is a naturally occurring chemical compound derived from the roots of tropical plants,” the news release said.

The upper Gibbon River drainage includes streams that flow out of Grebe, Wolf and Ice lakes in the central part of the park. The Wolf Lake Trail and Virginia Cascades Drive that access this area were closed to the public during the project.

“Sometimes falls are used as natural barriers that assist with the project, other times the park will have to create an artificial barrier to help protect the headwaters above the project (from nonnative fish),” Bethany Gassman, public information officers for the park, said in an email Friday.

“To ensure the removal of nonnative fish, these treatments will be repeated in 2019 and if needed, 2020,” the release said. “Reintroduction of native fish will begin in 2021.”

This season’s portion of the project is set to end today.

The park hopes to create “refuges” to support populations of native westslope cutthroat trout and fluvial arctic grayling. The grayling are specific to Yellowstone.

“The historic stocking of nonnative fish nearly eliminated these species from Yellowstone,” the news release said.

In recent years, park projects have restored cutthroat and grayling to the East Fork of Specimen Creek, Goose Lake and Grayling Creek.