Grouse Mountain, Vancouver BC

Grouse Mountain is less than 30-min drive north of downtown. It’s one of the peaks near the city. In the winter time skiers and snowboarders come for snow fun. In the summer time, people come for warm-weather activities. This year there’s been so much spring time snow, the slopes are still open in the beginning of June. Teenagers and adults alike are hulling their skis and snowboards in short-sleeve t-shirts.

We took a gondola big enough for 50 people from the bottom of the hill to the middle of the peak. We came for the ziplines and Eye of the Wind tour. There were also a couple other activities included in the general admission we wanted to check out. So first stop, the ziplines. There are five ziplines at Grouse, but only three are open because the two on the top of the mountain were still snow-covered. We got all strapped up in harness, took our gear and walked over to the first zipline tower.

Jose's all strapped and ready

Brake system

The second zipline was the most fun. At top speed we were traveling at about 45 miles/hr, so fast that we needed these orange bags to cushion our stop. See the coil springs at the end of the cable, they collapse to slow us down. But stopping from 45 miles/hr, a person would swing forward and hit the coil spring so hard that it would cause injury. Hence the orange bags in place to cushion our swing. All I remember was that after getting into the stop position - pulling in legs, tugging in chin and curling up - my body was slammed really hard into a big stuffed orange bag. It’s much safer and harmless than it sounded. =)

It was so much fun and thrill. We wished the other two ziplines were open. Oh well, there’s an end to everything.

Our next stop was to tour the Eye of the Wind. We had a little over an hour to kill before that, so we decided to watch the Lumberjack show in the meantime. Yes, Lumberjack show. Did you know there are professional timber sports lumberjacks who compete on activities such as pole climbing, log rolling, axe throwing and such. We had two actors putting on a show of lumberjack competition. One guys was the world champion of pole climbing. Pretty impressive, isn’t it? The acting part of the show was kind of silly, but some of the competitive timber sports were really cool.

The guy on the left was the world champion in pole climbing. He gave the other guy a 7-second start and you just see him catching up in no time like a squirrel. When on the top, he just let go and pretty much did a free-fall on his way back down. The ground was cushioned, btw.

Log rolling; see who stays on the log longer

Now onto the next major stop, Eye of the Wind tour. Eye of the Wind refers to the giant wind turbine on top of Grouse Mountain. It generates on average 25% of the electricity that powers the entire mountain resort. To get there we took a very slow chair lift ride, followed by a 5min walk in the snow which was more difficult than expected.

The turbine is over 200ft tall with a 360° viewPod with an amazing view of the area surrounding the mountain and Vancouver city. An elevator takes you up to the viewPod. It’s glass-walled and even glass-floored on one section of the view chamber.

View of Vancouver from the viewPod

The view was amazing. Our stomachs though were empty from a whole day of activities on the mountain. We thanked our tour guide and drove back to the city for some good grub.