Cypress Mountain is a ski area in West Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, located in the southern section of Cypress Provincial Park, operated under a BC Parks Park Use Permit. The ski resort is a 30-minute drive north of downtown Vancouver, and has 53 named alpine ski runs (many accessible for night skiing) and 19 km of cross country trails. Snowshoeing tours are also popular. Snow schools and rentals, Cypress Creek Grill, Gold Medal Cafe and Crazy Raven Bar and Grill and a Big Bear Sports retail shop are also located on the premises in the Cypress Creek Lodge. Cypress Mountain hosted the Freestyle Skiing and Snowboarding events of the 2010 Winter Olympics, including SkiCross as a demonstration sport, and the first running of Snowboardcross as a Medal sport. The ski area's downhill runs are built on two mountains (Mount Strachan – and Black Mountain – , on a vertical rise of . The resort is legally known as Cypress Bowl Recreational Limited Partnership, previously owned by Boyne Resorts, then sold to CNL Income Properties, then Och-Ziff Capital Management, but Boyne Canada has continued to run the ski operation for several years under a lease-back agreement. Boyne repurchased the resort in March 2018. The ski resort name Cypress Mountain is derived from the name of the bowl between the three mountains, Mount Strachan, Black Mountain, and Hollyburn Mountain – "Cypress Bowl", which was the original and still-used common name of the resort (the facilities by Cypress Bowl Recreations Ltd.). The term cypress comes from the yellow cedar tree Cupressus nootkatensis which is common in the park at altitudes over 800 metres, and is also known as yellow cypress, as well as from the name of the park in which the ski operation is located. Despite the resort name, there is in fact no mountain named Cypress Mountain in the park. History The ski area was initially opened by BC Parks in the 1970s, after two Murray-Latta double-chairs were constructed on Mt. Strachan and Black Mountain. Night skiing was initially added in 1985 on those two chairs. In 1987, the Sky Chair was installed at the peak of Mt. Strachan, opening up new terrain and reaching the highest point on either mountain. The chair was a Mueller double relocated from Apex Mountain Resort. Cypress was the first ski resort in BC to allow snowboarding, doing so on March 15, 1987. Another double-chair,