January 11, 2020
Andy surprised me with a birthday snowshoe trip up in Vancouver this year! It was the perfect combination of forest and city fun. Since we only had the weekend, instead of camping we stayed in a hotel with a very nice location and view.
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| Sweet view |
Grouse Mountain was only a 20 minute drive from our hotel. The lots were packed by the time we arrived at 9 am on Saturday but there was still plenty of parking. It was a late start for us, but the gondola doesn't start for non-pass holders until just before 9 am so we took our time getting up there.
The staff at Grouse Mountain are very good at packing the gondola tight with people. It's a 5 minute ride up and they try to fit as many people as possible which made the line move relatively quickly. It felt like we got on after a 45 minute wait, but I wasn't timing.
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| Sardines |
On our way up, Andy and I thought we heard the operator mention the snowshoe routes were closed. Indeed, when we asked the info people at the top they let us know the routes were closed because they did not pass avalanche testing. With not much else to do at the top of the mountain we headed back down to try to get a refund. Instead, we got good news that the routes had opened so we were issued new tickets to go back up (this time there was no line!).
Most of the people going up Grouse Mountain were skiers so we basically had the snowshoe routes all to ourselves. We ran in to a handful of people but most of the time we were alone in the quiet forest.
The day was dry and cloudy. Blue skies were peeking out here and there.
We chatted with a couple that had already made it to the top of Dam Mountain. The clouds didn't look like they were going to give us a glimpse of the city so they headed back down. Andy and I stayed at the top anyways which paid off because the clouds rolled away enough for us to see the city and some of the sound!
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| Me be 33. You can kind of see the city and sound behind me. |
Instead of heading out the way we came up, we decided to continue on the path forward which made a small loop. We came to a fork in the trail and got a tip that it led to Thunderbird Ridge. I love my ridge hikes so we took a left and continued towards the ridge to the top.
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| Path up to the ridge. Do you see Andy? |
I think the views would have also been spectacular here, but the clouds weren't budging. We took a few pictures, had a quick snack, and headed back down.
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| Thunderbird Ridge |
Going down was the fun part. The snow was packed in some areas and powdery in others. It's a blast sliding down on snowshoes. Of course we fell a few times.
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| Whee!! |
It was a good time up on the mountain and we ended with apres beers at the lodge!
