MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – Snowmobile fatalities in Vermont have hit an all-time high this winter after two people were killed in crashes during the weekend.

That brings the total deaths to six, surpassing the five during the 2000-01 snowmobile season, said Bryant Watson, director of the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers.

The fatalities are attributed to speed, inexperience, icy conditions or alcohol.

Although he didn’t have the final police reports, Watson believed speed was involved in most of the fatalities this year.

“It’s pretty easy to miss a corner if you are driving too quickly,” Watson said.

Lucy Ford, of New Hampshire Snowmobile Association, said her organization has found that fatalities are often linked to inexperience.

“There are a lot more renters,” she said. “The potential for accidents is a lot higher when you put someone inexperienced on a sled.”

Three fatalities have happened in Orleans County alone.

In New Hampshire, four people have been killed in snowmobiling accidents this year, Ford said. The highest number of snowmobile fatalities occurred in the early 1990s and peaked at eight.

As for Vermont, Orleans County VAST director Brian Cook said, “This has been a bad year.”

The first one came on Jan. 22, when Shane Langmaid, 16, of Lowell, who was a passenger on a snowmobile, was killed in a two-machine collision on Crystal Lake in Barton.

Both operators were cited for snowmobiling while intoxicated.

On Feb. 6 a New Milford, Conn., man failed to negotiate a turn on VAST Trail 114 in Derby, fell off his snowmobile and struck a tree.

The victim, Paulo S. Duarte, was 29 years old.

On Sunday Michael Hemingway, 44, of South Burlington, crashed into a tree on VAST trail 14B in Coventry.

The second weekend death occurred in Chelsea when 17-year-old Jackie Lakin of Jay failed to negotiate her new snowmobile on a corner and went over the handlebars and into some small trees, police said. Police said speed did not appear to be a factor in the girl’s death.