So, I was out in Seattle last week and was travelling through Vancouver.  I decided to stay a day in Vancouver; in part to spend some time with a friend, in part to avoid the red eye, and in part to do the Grouse Grind which had been on my todo list since my wife did it back in the early 2000s.

What is the Grouse Grind, you ask?  It's a 'hike' up Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver (about a 15 minute drive from downtown).  I write 'hike' because this isn't the type of hike you might be imagining - it's 2.9km long, but covers an elevation gain of 2,800 feet.  This is a few hundred feet more than the elevation gain at Mt. Tremblant.

I did the hike on a reasonably warm (10 C) and dry day.  I wore my usual running gear and brought nothing more than a bottle of water and a change of shirt for the top (the top was pretty cold and windy, so I'm glad I had a dry shirt).  My time was around 65 or 70 minutes, which I was pretty happy with.  This was a pretty gruelling hike, and you see almost nothing along the way - but the view from top of N. Van and Vancouver is pretty stellar.

This was an amazing adventure - I highly recommend it if you enjoy this sort of thing.  Take the gondola down for $5, and save your knees!