After a four-year closure, skiers and snowboarders will again be hitting the powder at West Kelowna’s Crystal Mountain this winter.
Don Journeay has been quietly cleaning up what remains of the Crystal Mountain ski resort for the past two years with a plan to eventually reopen the hills he once worked at.
“We’re going to call it either Last Mountain Adventure Park or Bull Mountain Adventure Park,” said Journeay.
Last Mountain was the name of the mountain prior to being called Crystal Mountain in the ’90s.
The resort closed in 2014 following a chairlift derailment that injured four people. Since then, the hill has been abandoned, inviting several acts of vandalism and theft.
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Journeay worked at the resort in various capacities throughout the ’90s and said that he hopes families in the West Kelowna area can have similar experiences to what he and his family had.
“I raised my kids on that mountain. There’s nothing left to do for kids in Westbank anymore and it’s sad,” said Journeay.
“There’s just such a demand for it. It’s so sad that it sits there abandoned when the whole community wants to get back up and ski again.”
Journeay signed the lease last Tuesday and plans on having things ready to go for the upcoming winter season.
“I’ve been up there just cleaning up, taking loads to the dump and looking after the area,” he said of the continual progress in the area.
Journeay claimed community support has been great and has even had some recently stolen items returned, following the announcement of the park’s return.
“Thursday night they broke in,” said Journeay. “I guess they might’ve found out about the mountain reopening, and we had a lot of our stuff returned to us Saturday morning.”
Anyone who is interested in the project is asked to contact Journey via email at donaldjourneay@yahoo.com.
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