2004-06-16
When my interest in hiking had revived in recent times, one of the places I wanted to check out was the Grouse Grind because it was something I kept hearing about that I'd never hiked up before. So I wanted to see what the fuss was about.
We arrived at the Grouse Mountain parking lots at about 08:00 and parked in the eastern, unpaved, lot because it's free (I forgot to find out what parking costs in the paved lot). On a Wednesday morning there were already about a dozen cars in the lot; plenty of space. Looking to the west, the Lions are visible (closeup) above the western parking lot. These pictures are underexposed and so are misleadingly dark.
The Grouse Grind starts just north of the unpaved lot. If you miss the little wooden stairs you'll notice the sign on the right side of the main road when you leave the parking lot and walk north a bit. Washrooms are on the south side of the paved lot. The trail head is fenced and gated -- projects a feeling that's more of a low-security prison than a hiking trail!
Shortly the trail forks; keep to the left to continue up the Grind, take the left for the Baden-Powell Trail.
The grind can be steep. Here's a shot showing what the slope is like in one spot — and the other side of the trail (showing some Grind steps in the corner of the photo).
The Grind curves towards the skyride and it's possible to catch sight of a cable car passing by if one's hike happens to be timed right. At one point the trail curves very close to the skyride and there is a side trail passing under it. A nice place for a picture of one of the towers and a view of North Vancouver.
I shot very few satisfactory pictures under the tree cover because the light was too faint for a fast exposure. Here's one of the acceptable shots. It gives a good indication of the slope of the Grind and also shows what I assume is a black power cable partly buried by the trail!
Here's a shot of some interesting trees growing on a very steep slope.
The top of the Grind (where the person's standing), taken after we had reached the top and sat down for a bite to eat. From the same spot here's the top of the skyride.
There are some interesting carved wooden statues on the ski operation's site on the mountaintop. There's a statue of some bears near the view point beneath the top of the skyride. There's another interesting statue towards the summit.
Proceeding towards the summit one begins to see it poking above one of the roads at the ski operation. Note the cell phone antenna tower to the right. My phone didn't change signal strength near it (one of the Nokia 6185 test screens shows this), so is it not a Telus tower, does it have a very tight pattern, or is it just not in service?
Here's a view of one of the lifts on the eastern side of Grouse, with the Old Grouse Highway visible on the side of Mt. Fromme.
The easiest way to reach the summit is to follow the unpaved road that curves around the eastern side of the summit. The road curves around to the left, which is where there was still some snow hiding from the sun. There wasn't much of it, and then we reached the summit, on which the top of the lift has been positioned.
The summit gives great views of the Lower Mainland. Here's a shot of Vancouver and beyond from the summit -- note the guy sitting in the chair! I don't know the story behind this chair, it was simply there waiting for someone to sit down and enjoy the view! Alert readers will notice that the lift has no cables. Perhaps they've been taken down for the off-season.
It's quite peaceful to sit down at the top of the ski run and just take in the view for a while. One can see the ski operation with Vancouver and Georgia Straight beyond it.
Eventually one feels the need to move a ways away for a different view. Here's that chair again; looking quite lonely while waiting for the next person comes to sit down. Look who came to visit while I was standing on a boulder! The tree is a metre from where I was standing, and the bird stayed just long enough for me to snap a few pictures before it moved along.
A very amusing thing happened while I was checking out the view. I had been joking about whom I should annoy by calling with my cell phone and waxing rapturously about the view from the mountain. Turns out I didn't have to -- my phone rang when someone called me! The bad thing is that while the phone would ring on incoming calls, I could not answer them or make any outgoing calls. In fact, I couldn't call out at all until I was back down at the level of the ski operation; I had such poor reception checking my voice mail that I decided not to return the call until I was off the mountain.
The most exciting way down from the summit is to walk down the ski run! A side-effect is that doing so removes some trees that were blocking the view higher up on the summit. In that picture you can make out the Old Grouse Highway on Mt. Fromme on the very left.
From the same spot here's a seris of shots showing the view from Pitt Meadows in the east to Point Grey in the west: Pitt Meadows, SFU, Burnaby, Second Narrows, Vancouver (east), Vancouver (central), Downtown Vancouver, Vancouver (west), Point Grey.
Looking back at the ski run you can see some miniscule people that were following us down. The summit is behind the barely visible tower that's to the north of the two easily visible towers.
No pictures were taken during the hike down the Grind. I was a little tired and was concentrating on my footing. Despite that I did lose my footing and almost tumbled once.
Another shot of the Lions (and a closeup from the free parking lot, this time in the afternoon sun with the lot being much busier -- easy to tell it's a tourist trap. As I was standing by my car one pushy person even asked if we were leaving; there were spaces available at the eastern end of this lot though (through the narrow strip that leads to the exit). Perhaps they're lazy people that didn't come here to walk?
The last shot is of the free parking lot, with what I assume is the powerline trail or access road heading off to the east. The parking lot exit is just beyond the furthest cars in this shot.
Here's a topographic map of Grouse, showing the approximate path of the hike (the groovy blue line). The dotted portion is where the GPS receiver lost its fix; the satellite constellation was poor at the time, I expect it will be okay another time.
To summarize: The Grouse Grind is a series of stairs that climb up the side of Grouse; almost 800 vertical metres versus about 1500 horizontally, with only a couple of sections where one can take a few steps without having any stairs to climb. There are a few places where something resembling a view is visible -- for someone of a technical nature the best view was of a skyride tower and its cables -- but this trail is not about views, one gets a lovely sense of being *in* a forest as one climbs the trail, and those seeking a cardio workout can get it easily.