Grouse Mountain trip

Have you noticed that we like mountains yet? Last Saturday (11th), Steph and I decided to take a trip to Grouse Mountain. Steph was keen to get in some more skiing before the season ended. Grouse is one of three mountains close to Vancouver, along with Cypress and Seymour. It probably takes less than 30 minutes in a car, but we don't have one of those, and public transport takes us about an hour to get there. From the base of the mountain, there is a gondola ride to the top. Saturday was a beautiful day with blue skies and lots of sun. We had picked a very busy day on Grouse, probably because of the good weather combined with the end of the season approaching. While Steph went off skiing, I rented some snowshoes and decided to take a hike (literally). They have some clearly marked and busy hiking trails on the top of Grouse, so I didn't feel perturbed at walking on my own. Compared to Whistler previously, the hike on Grouse was more of an ordeal - a long and hard drag upwards most of the time. It took about an hour to reach the summit of Dam Mountain, but the views were spectacular and a great reward. Coming down again was much easier too :) I definitely enjoyed the exercise and the scenery, though I'd like to find some trails that have more variety of climbing and descending - going uphill all the time is tough. Steph had fun too, though she probably spent more time waiting in line for the lifts than she spent skiing. Now she's talking about a last trip to Whistler before the end of March. I guess we'll see. Anyway, check out the pictures from my hike here.