Description: And so there I was, finally feeling like my wayward group of travelers had just about reached the top of
Grouse Mountain, when a 64-year-old man comes bounding by us and says, "Don’t worry, the halfway point is not too far up." What!? The
halfway point? Who am I, Colt Seavers? "My best time getting up the mountain is 47 minutes, but the record is 27 minutes by a young fella like yourself," he continued. Okay, I know my face was flushed and I was keeled over like I had just gotten punched in the stomach by Butterbean, but you don’t have to rub it in!
On a cool, crisp Vancouver morning, Martin from Montreal, Liron from Israel, and yours truly from Brooklyn took the SeaBus over to North Vancouver with the intention of seeing what the Grouse Grind Trail was all about. I had read that it was a somewhat strenuous trail, but nowhere did I see or hear about it being an unforgiving, gut-wrenching trek that went straight up. This isn’t your usual meandering path that slowly winds its way up--straight-up verticality is all it knows. Sometimes you’re scratching and clawing your way up some jutting rocks, other times you’re high-stepping on log steps. Either way, even those who consider themselves relatively in shape (and of course I am) should be ready to tax that cardiovascular system.
Once you make it up to the top, though, the view is utterly gratifying and the sense of accomplishment overshadows your desperate gasps for breath. Seriously, I was itching to strike the infamous Rocky Balboa pose after he scales the courthouse steps. There’s a plethora of activity going on up at the top of Grouse Mountain, including a couple restaurants, a grizzly-bear exhibit, and the popular cable car, which we decided was too expensive at around C$20 each way (more on that choice later). Liron and I had packed some wheat bread, cheddar cheese, and Cracker Jacks to snack on, which saved us from purchasing overpriced "top o’ the mountain fare."
After taking a long, relaxing siesta, we decided to go back down the trail. Even though we were well aware that we had just gone through the same thing two hours ago, Liron and I couldn’t stop laughing at everyone’s body language and expressions as they finally got to the end of the trail. I thought we could make some cash if we crouched right at the end and snapped Polaroids of how everyone looked--even if people didn’t buy them, at least we’d have some riotous pictures to laugh at!
In many ways, going down was worse than going up. The impact on your knees is killer--every time we stopped for a break, Martin’s legs were involuntarily shaking. Yeah, we saved some cash by not taking the cable car down, but accelerated our pace to "the days of the walking cane."
Close