Effort underway to reopen Crystal Mountain Ski Resort, but with a new name

Last Mountain Adventure Park or Bull Mountain Adventure Park?

Outdoor enthusiasts in the Okanagan are being asked to help fund the rebirth of Crystal Mountain Ski Resort in West Kelowna.

The resort has been closed since 2014, and now an Okanagan resident is hoping to reopen it.

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The ski resort, though, won’t be known as Crystal Mountain.

Instead, area resident and organizer Don Journeay is hoping to rename it either Last Mountain Adventure Park or Bull Mountain Adventure Park.

The fundraiser said 100 per cent of the proceeds from both campaigns will go towards startup costs, and the campaign with the most donations will win the name contest.

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“We’re starting our fundraising campaign by giving the community a chance to name the mountain,” said the fundraiser.

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According to the fundraiser, Journeay worked at the ski hill as a young man and later brought his kids to its slopes.

In 2014, a chairlift incident that injured four people led to the resort’s closure.

The B.C. Safety Authority said in a report that a counterweight used to keep correct tension on the haul rope was in contact with the ground. This reduced tension and made the system more susceptible to swinging chairs.

On the day of the incident, excessive chair swing caused the haul rope to disengage at the second tower, resulting in three chairs falling to the ground.

The fundraiser said in 2017, Journeay visited the resort and saw it sitting in near ruin, prompting him to try and save it.