Cypress Mountain planning four-season expansion with 2-km zipline and new lifts

Cypress Mountain Resort has unveiled a comprehensive 60-year development plan aimed at keeping the mountain active year-round, moving beyond the traditional seven-month closure of its winter-only operations.

The plan includes a new Nordic lodge, replacement of many existing lifts to improve the experience without boosting overall capacity, expanded snowmaking to contend with more variable winters, and a new learners ski area roughly double the size of the current one. "There's a lot of people that come to the North Shore mountains to learn how to ski and we need to create more and better learning terrain and give them a better lift experience than they have today," said Matt Davies, president and general manager of Cypress Mountain.

For summer and shoulder seasons, the plan features a new downhill mountain bike park already under construction — roughly twice the size of the park that existed before the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The resort is also planning to relocate the Cypress Eagle Coaster, expand hiking and viewing platforms, add disc golf and climbing walls, and develop a zipline stretching roughly 2 kilometres from Mount Strachan peak to Black Mountain peak, reaching 1,000 feet above the valley floor at its highest point.

"We have parking lots with lodges and we have lifts and all of this infrastructure that historically just was mothballed for seven or eight months of the year," Davies said. "For us, I think there's a really good opportunity to create a more four-season recreation experience."

Unlike Mt. Seymour, which is pursuing boundary expansion, Cypress has no plans to expand into the provincial park beyond its existing footprint. "There is so much opportunity to improve what we do within the existing footprint that going out and looking for expansion and taking more land out of the public domain is just not something we need to do," Davies said.

BC Parks is currently reviewing the resort's plans ahead of deciding whether to renew the parks use permit, which expires in 2034. Each component of the plan must still undergo individual BC Parks approval following First Nations consultation, archaeological overviews, and environmental mitigation and management plans.