Just days after announcing his intention to reopen a West Kelowna skill hill, Don Journeay found this at the gates — the return of a number of stolen items.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Don Journeay

When Don Journeay announced last week that he plans to re-open a West Kelowna ski hill this winter, he was hoping for support from the community. So far, he’s got that but he didn’t expect this.

Since Crystal Mountain closed in 2014 after a chairlift cable left its track injuring several skiers, the hill at the top of Glenrosa Road has been off limits. Signs tell visitors the hill is closed, but has attracted vandalism and theft of remaining equipment.

That continued once Don Journeay got on the scene in 2017, working to reopen the hill in limited capacity. He says two break-ins in roughly the last year cleaned him out of important equipment including a welder, a chainsaw, radio, tools, two motorcycles and more.

"It was kind of funny but after the announcement about reopening the mountain, I went down yesterday morning and a lot of the stolen stuff returned to the front of the gate,” he says. “We got back two of the bikes that were stolen, my welder, a bunch of hand tools and some other miscellaneous stuff.”

Many items are still missing but he sees it as a positive sign.

Journeay confirmed for iNFOnews.ca last week he bought the lease for the hill and plans to reopen this winter as Bull Mountain Adventure Park. They’ll use a T-bar and other amenities instead of the chairlifts.

“Maybe they want the mountain to open just like everybody else,” he says. "I can only hope."

If so, the thieves have plenty of company. Journeay says he’s heard from many people who want to volunteer either at the hill or to help repair and prepare the site before winter. Before its closure, the hill was where many people learned to ski or snowboard. It was a much smaller but less expensive option to the larger ski hills in the area.

"It seems a lot more than I expected,” he says. "It’s still pretty early in the game. There’s still lots to do and not a lot of time to do it.”

He’s meeting with the Central Okanagan Regional District next week to finalize some of his plans. That’ll give him a sense of what has to be done and who can help him do it.

“It's a bit stressful moving forward on this it's a lot to do, it's a lot to coordinate,” he says. “(Getting the stolen items returned) is heart warming… it's been pretty stressful thinking about people breaking in. Getting it back shows me we are turning the page.”

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