Wintergreen - The Lost Resorts, Episode 4 

Wintergreen was the heart of Bragg. I was a lifty for 7 years there. Night skiing was great, the parties were epic. See you all down at the Powderhorn after! -Adrian

I was a ski instructor there till the last year then had to go to cop and my brother took ski lessons there when it was lion mountain great video blast from the past We would work there to get season passes so we could go to fortress

We were very lucky to live in this area when I was growing up and take advantage of the hill. Super sad that it will never re-open. ❤

Omg thank you for this Calgary local nostalgic blast from the past! I loved Wintergreen so much and still reminisce about it to this day. It's where I learned how to ski in the late 80's, and snowboard in the mid 90's and in our teen years we drank beer in the trees by the back quad lift, at night skiing. So many great memories!

Thank you very much for video much requested

Outstanding ⛷️

Thanks for this video, I skied Lyon a bunch from '86 through '91. It was always a fun little hill for those times when I didn't want to spend the extra time to drive to Fortress or didn't want to spend the extra money going to Lake Louise. Once it was all under the ownership of Charlie Lock my Louise Card also provided a discount at both Lyon/Wintergreen and the Fort. The night skiing was also a lot of fun, much better then night skiing at Paskapoo / COP. As I recall the years I skied there, only the "front" side was lit at night - the Wildcat Quad runs didn't have any lights. I don't know if they ever lit the "backside" or not. I think if my memory is correct, they'd also often shut down the Moose Meadow T-Bar on nights when it wasn't busy and just run the double, the deer run T, and the handle tow. They probably realized that one of the biggest uses of Moose Meadow was to get to the Quad area. I love that you included the old Lyon TV spot. I recall being upstairs in the lodge just after that spot had been finished and they got a copy of it to run in the lodge. Several of the staff who were in it pointed themselves out, laughing and having a fun time. A few years later there was another TV spot that was put together. This was after the rebranding of the hill to Wintergreen and it ran on 2&7 for at least one ski season. It featured their "Welcome to Wintergreen" jingle / song that they had commissioned for the ad campaign (it was a combined radio and TV campaign). The TV spot didn't run all that often - they probably had a limited advertising budget. I do recall the radio jingle running a lot, they bought a bunch of ad time on AM106 and other stations. I am a little puzzled though, the first black and white picture in this video with the chairlift, is this actually Lyon? It clearly is a double-double chair from looking at the towers, but the one at Lyon had all center-pole chairs when I skied there. As I recall the chairs were also at a weird angle, when you sat down in them it initially felt like you might end up on the ground. Of course this was part of the charm of the place. However this B&W picture clearly is not center-pole chairs. If this is Lyon then did they replace the chairs on that lift sometime during the RCR ownership? I can't envisioning RCR having spent money to replace the chairs on that lift (once Murray Edwards was involved they were always more interested in the golf course then spending any kind of money on the ski hill). I admit this one picture kind of threw me off, but the chairs might have been changed after I last skied there. Also one thing I was never clear on - did RCR shorten the Deer Run T-Bar during their tenure to make it end at the mid-mountain station? Whenever I skied there this lift always was the full original length, but sometime after I had moved away from Calgary I noticed on the ski maps that it appeared that T-Bar had been shortened to only go as far as the mid-mountain spot. I never fully understood if they just required people to get off at the mid-mountain point, with the empty t-bars going the rest of the way up and down the hill or if they had actually physically shortened the lift. Of course after the accident the lift was just removed entirely. Overall a great video, lots of memories! Thanks for posting it!

Thanks so much for this. Sure brings back the memories of night skiing at Lyon and I recall ringing in the New Year at a do there. 80s!! Such a sad demise.

Great work. Nice trip down memory lane.

Thanks for this! More flashbacks. We skied there a lot when I was growing up. Later when I was teaching & coaching at Norquay on weekends, a friend was also at Norquay on weekends, and taught at Wintergreen during the weekdays. Wintergreen would suffer from soft slushy snow as it was on the down-slope of the foothills, which is where the warm Chinook winds would come along at a few points in the winter. That would always soften the snow, and by about late February it would already start making it slushy, and some seasons that would just be the way it was at Wintergreen for the rest of the season. But if you caught it in the heart of winter, you had some pretty good days there!

Another great video and Alberr ta history I never knew about.

Had fun working as a lifty here in the early 90's. Great after school and weekend job. Rode a lot of snow shovels and cafeteria trays down the slope to the quad chair. I remember the Tbar loading area always built up with ice and anyone that was tall and didn't pay attention, got whacked in the head by the cable reel, lots of headaches from that thing.

So many memories there. When my parents passed away a couple of years ago, I was cleaning out their house and came across old photo albums from the late 80's of myself and my friends at Wintergreen. We were only about 12 in the photos. We kept skiing there right until the very end, and it was a real sad day for us all when we learned it was closing. None of us golf, so that was out of the question, lol.

Thank you for this! My school took us on a field trip here in 91 and 92, then again in 95. I LOVED it! It was a very fun hill for an intermediate skier. I even bought a toque from the shop. And then I never heard of it again - I thought I was going crazy - how does a ski hill disappear?!? This video has given me closure that I didn’t know I needed lol 😂 I wish they would reopen it because I’d love to take my own kiddo snowboarding there. It was such a nice hill

Great video and research, well done. I started snowboarding as a kid and worked the last 10 years there

I had some great memories night skiing with my dad at Wintergreen. I even applied for a job there but had a bad feeling when I was interviewed (the management was very unorganized) and I chose to be a lift operator at COP instead. I really have a hate for RCR and Murray Edwards as I believe they were to quick to shut down ski hills. Question. How did Charlie Locke manage to keep ownership of Lake Louise but lose the other hills. I always thought that was interesting. Great video.

Wintergreen in Virginia might meet the same fate at some point; the last few seasons have been incredibly warm, not to mention Wintergreen’s 2022-23 season ended before March even began!

Won a “halfpipe” contest there in ‘90

I work maintenence at a local resort in central alberta called canyon. Last weekend we started talks about aquiring the quad chair still on the mountain as it was "free"(towers and chair). It's estimated to cost over a million cad just to remove it, as well as 1.5 million in movement and restoration. Thought this was interesting and i am happy to give updates if anyones interested in that sort of thing.

One of the four investors last name was dingman. I went to high school with his son.

Lyon Mountain opened in 1982, not 1985. I learned to ski there in 1984.

You have to do an episode on Fortress!

Word !

My man you got another article written about you, Mr popular over here 😏.

I was an avid skier from 75 to 96. Never skied there once. ....just drove to Fortress or night skied at Pakapoo/ COP.