A Concord man working as a snowmobile guide was injured Wednesday when a client ran over him while getting out of a snowbank, one of a series of recent accidents as New Hampshire has the best snowmobile season in several years.

The New Hampshire Fish and Game Department is urging riders to stay on marked trails, partly to make it easier to be helped if an accident happens.

Officials say rescue operations have become more frequent but also more difficult as more people venture off legal trails. This places a strain on rescuers and also angers landowners, leading to concerns that they will block off existing trails.

In one of two incidents on the same trail in Lincoln on Wednesday, Fish and Game said Garrett Halle, 32, of Concord was guiding snowmobilers on marked trails when Alan Sisk, 65, got his rental snowmobile “stuck in deep snow while trying to turn around.” 

Halle was helping to free the snowmobile “when the operator accidentally hit the throttle and struck him causing serious but non-life threatening injuries.” Halle was taken to Spear Memorial Hospital for treatment.

The accident happened not far from a guided tour where a Massachusetts man had rolled his rented snowmobile shortly before, suffering “serious but non-life threatening injuries.” He was taken out of the woods by guides and also went to Spear Memorial Hospital for treatment.

Both accidents happened on Primary Trail 156, part of the state’s 7,000-mile system of maintained snowmobile trails. Good snowfall in January and February with continued cold temperatures has opened virtually all the trails, most of which are on private land, leading to a surge in traffic and also a surge in accidents.

Recent accidents include a 17-year-old Alton boy and a 65-year-old Moultonboro woman both hitting trees and getting hurt in separate incidents, two men who were hurt in two rollovers on Corridor 12A trail in Randolph on the same morning, and one weekend day that saw three accidents with injuries in three different Coos County towns within the course of six hours. 

No fatalities have been reported this season.