Part 2 - Grouse Mountain
We decided why not, let's go up the mountain. So we walked back out to the street to see if we saw a bus stop to get up there and sure enough right outside the cafe we were eating at there was one. We had no idea what the bus schedule was so we literally just sat on the bench waiting. Luckily it was only about 10 minutes and a bus showed up. We hopped on and bam, mark it down I was down with the PT again. It was a really pretty ride up to the mountain. That is one thing that I have to give to Vancouver is up in the mountain area, it really is gorgeous.
Once at the mountain we found the main customer service center where you could see all the things you could do. There was an option for the Skyride which is basically the main gondola that takes you from the base of the mountain up towards the summit where along the way there are a couple stops you can make. Everyone was really just going up to the main first stop so that is all we bought the tickets for. At that stop there were tons of things you could see / do. We made our way to the line to board the gondola. I soon realized that they were going to be packing us in that thing like sardines. No joke we literally were practically standing on top of people. Longest 4 minutes ever. And it just so happened to be a rather warm day so just put that picture in your head too. ICK!
The view up was really good though, we managed to fight our way straight to one of the sides so we could look out on the way up. About half way up it you literally could see back down over pretty much all of Vancouver. It was was gorgeous. We made it to the top and got out of that thing as fast as possible. On the last 20 seconds up we had peaked over and there was this little look out spot with a big grass area so we headed there first. I thought it would be kinda of cute to just lay in the grass and overlook the city. We really only ended up laying there about 5 minutes, if that I think. It was actually still much hotter at the top of the mountain than we anticipated so it felt like we were starting to get our sunburn on. So we decided to just start moseying around.
We walked through one of the shops and I saw these shirts that said "I Survived the Grind". I immediately was like what the hell is the grind? I found a worker and asked and apparently it's probably the worst day of your life. If you're not in shape that is. The Grouse Grind is a 2.9 km trail that has an 853 meter elevation gain. And in case you wanted a little more challenge, apparently a majority of it is stairs. (Hey guess what, this is considered a difficult trail in case you didn't know) I wish I would have known about the Grind prior to going up. I totally would have done it. I just didn't feel like it was probably the best decision to wreck myself. I can't lie I almost just bought the damn t-shirt and had a story all ready to tell about how I did it, but .....I didn't, because I'm not a lying liar who lies. But damn that would have been a good story. None the less if I did go back there, it would be on and I would kick that Grind's ass. Maybe.
I digress, back to our less exciting adventure on the mountain. We made our way out of the shop and on the backside was a trail that lead up to where the grizzly bears were. Grouse Mountain is home to two bears that live in captivity, Grinder and Coola. They were taken in by park officials back in 2001, at the time both still cubs. We were lucky enough to get a great glimpse of them wandering around while were we there.
There were only so many pictures you could take of the cute bears so we decided to wander a little more and realized it was about time for the World Famous Lumberjack show! I can't lie I was pretty excited. They were going to do all the typical Lumberjack events in a competition style. There was the log rolling, a 60 foot pole climb, axe throwing, and much more! It was all done in kind of a theatrical 45 minute show. Honestly it was hilarious! We found seats in the bleachers fairly close to the front. We ended up waiting about 20 minutes for the show to start and wowsers, it was HOT. We literally started roasting. I soon realized that there wasn't a question about it I was going to get sunburned and I was going to have horrible tan lines. But it was totally worth it. The log rolling by far was my favorite part. I wish they would have pulled someone from the stands in to do that instead of the double sided axe cutting. Amateurs doing log rolling, I mean come on. That would be awesome. Just when I thought the show was coming to a close though out of the corner of my eye I caught a random person climbing the 60 foot pole. Meanwhile the characters were still going about their show and I wasn't really sure how many people actually saw the guy climbing up. All the sudden he had yelled and it was then made to seem like he was up there on a death mission. The back story was that his girlfriend had caught the bouquet at the wedding that was going on down at the bottom of the mountain and he felt like his life was doomed. Pretty funny actually. So he started doing all kinds of crazy things up atop that pole. Planking, yes planking still is a big thing, well maybe it just made it's way to Canada. Standing on his head, doing handstands. I mean honestly I was getting so much anxiety watching this I could have thrown up. Now I knew in some way he was harnessed the whole time but still, it was nerve wracking watching him. In the end when it was time for him to "jump" he was indeed hooked to a zip line cord that went off one of the sides and took him all the way to the other side of where we were sitting. It was great!
By the time the show was done we realized we needed to make our way back down the mountain to be able to catch the bus back down in time. Everyone else also had the same idea so we sat in line for quite a while. We did meet a really nice local family though who had actually traveled multiple times to Southern California so it was cool to chat with them. Passed the time anyway until we had to sardine pack it back down in the gondola. We took the public bus back to the Capilano Suspension park and then hopped back on the last free shuttle back to the city that we had come up on originally earlier that day.
The second part of our adventure day really turned out to be an amazing day. Even though we were completely exhausted we were so glad we went up to the mountain. Check it off the bucket list.
We made our way back to the hotel, I think we got back around about 5:30pm. We were both starving. I really had no energy to try and walk around the city to find something again so I figured why not just try the hotel restaurant. They raved about it so I figured it should be good. Man was I wrong. Stay tuned for the update on the worst meal we had on the trip! It was a real shit show!
Until then...
xoxo
M-EFF
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