Grouse Mountain on a January Weekend
Written by Robyn on January 6th, 2009Thanks to an awesome Christmas present from Tyler’s brother and his girlfriend we were given two all day lift passes to Grouse Mountain. Although we knew it was going to be busy as it being a Sunday on the mountain we decided to go up to check it out. It has snowed over 33cm overnight so we were anxious to ski/ride in some new snow!
Peak-a-boo view of Grouse Mountain this winter season from our apartment
We arrived at the base of the mountain by 8:30am but it seems we were too late to get good parking. With so much snow Vancouver has been getting two of the parking lots were not plowed so parking was extremely limited. It has been years since I have skied Grouse so I didn’t remember parking being this much of an issue. However, we found some but had to walk uphill about 10mins to the gondola which was not the greatest as we were anxious to get up on the mountain.
Tyler having only started boarding last season is doing really well and is now an intermediate boarder so we were able to do a lot of runs. Also, Tyler was excited because he has always wanted to ride down the Cut, which is the main green run that you can see from the city on Grouse Mountain. Well, the Cut was good but we found it busy with a lot of adults and children learning.
Panoramic view down Grouse Mountain’s Cut
The snow was awesome! It was a heavy powder but soft and on the runs as they got more cut up during the course of the day formed soft moguls. It was surprisingly chilly about -5 Celsius and very windy. All of the lifts were open and Tyler and I got a chance to go on all of the blue and green terrain the mountain had to offer. I tried to entice Tyler to try some black diamond terrain but with the snow conditions being so moguly they looked quite difficult.
Blueberry Bowl with blue and black terrain in the background
As you can see from this photo the lifts were getting pretty busy into the day and line ups to get on were around a 20-30 minute wait. We would have liked to have done more runs but having to wait in line was a bit tedious. So we will are looking forward to going back soon but I think next time we might go on a weekday to avoid the crowds =)
January 8th, 2009 at 6:29 am
I LOVE that panoramic pic of The Cut! It’s so nice
Glad you guys had a good time. You’re right that coming on a week day makes it way quicker to get on the lifts. Evenings are great too. There are only a few days a year that are super busy like that – a few over Christmas break, spring break and any sunny weekend day. If you come when it’s overcast or inverted, it’s much quieter.