Grouse Grind

Last Thursday we decided with the gang that on Sunday (that's today) we should do the infamous Grouse Grind. Grouse Grind is a hiking trail that runs under the Grouse Mountain gondola - it's 3 km long, but rises a distance of 900m or so, and we've been hearing these horror stories from people who've done it. How they are out of breath after two minutes while pensioners run past them full speed.

I always though that they were just out of shape sissies. You know, I exercise three to four times a week, my cardio is good, I'm in good shape. Show me a trail and I'll hike it, no problem.

This morning though four people cancelled for various reasons, but as Dragon went to work me and Clay decided to do the hike anyway. We had our water bottles, our sun protection, and we were on the base of the mountain 9:30, enthusiastic and ready to go.

What everyone failed to explain in the humorous horror stories though is that we're talking about 3 km of stairs. My Lonely Planet guide describes it "more like an outdoor Stairmaster than a hike", and for a reason. The trail doesn't level off at any time. It just goes up up up, on stairs, rocks, trees, roots. Some people say that average time to do the Grind is one hour, that most people do it in 1,5 hours.

It took me and Clay 2,5 hours.

It's all true. Not only do the pensioners charge past you at full speed, also perky families with their kids, couples on dates, and some mad people even running the extremely popular trail. After the first quarter of the trail there was a warning sign saying that it would get hard after this - and this was straight after the stairs had stopped and we had been climbing on rocks for the past 100 meters. At that point I wanted to give up, but I knew there was no way I would get down those cliffs anymore.

I can't emphasize this enough - it never levels off. It's just climbing, lifting one foot, then another. And it goes on for three fucking kilometers. I tried to keep a steady pace, and keep regular breaks. My legs are half the length of Clay's, so I probably had to take the twice amount of steps he did... He went up at his pace and would wait for me and we would sit for a moment and let the pulse go down.

Views on the top are fantastic, and we took the Skyride down, oh yes we did. I'm really glad I did it, and I'm so proud of me and Clay actually going for it even if everyone else bailed out. It was also incredibly hard, and it came to me as a surprise exactly how hard it was... I don't know if I want to do it again - there are plenty of "normal" hikes around Vancouver and I think I'd much rather do a trail that allows me to take in the incredibly beautiful nature we have here, not only during a panting break.

See more photos here.

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