The North Shore Mountains – A Compairson for 2009/2010 Winter Season
Written by Tyler on October 2nd, 2009One of the cool aspects of living in the metro Vancouver area is that we have access to 3 different ski/snowboarding areas over on our beloved West Vancouver and North Vancouver area (aka the North Shore). With the Winter season approaching, a lot of people are probably wishing and dreaming of deep pow days for our North Shore Mountains this year. I thought it would be a cool idea to take a look at these 3 local ski mountains and what they offer.
In order of West to East:
Cypress Mountain
- Lifts: 9
- Number of Runs: 52* total / 14 lit for nighttime
- Green: 7, Blue: 18, Black: 19, Double Black: 4
- Vertical Rise: 610m (2010ft)
- Others: 2 Terrain Parks, 1 Half-Pipe
- URL: www.cypressmountain.com
Cypress Mountain has 19km of cross country ski trails which 7km of them are lit at night, 10km of snowshoeing self-guided trails as well as SnowTubing.
New to Cypress (as of last season) is the Crazy Raven Bar & Grill which is part of their newly constructed day lodge at the base of the two mountains.
* – Before/During/After the 2010 Winter Olympics there will be less runs/terrain available to ski/snowboarders.
Grouse Mountain
- Lifts: 5
- Number of Runs: 26 total / 13 lit for nighttime
- Green: 3, Blue: 15, Black: 6, Double Black: 2
- Vertical Rise: 384m (1260ft)
- Others: 2 Terrain Parks
- URL: www.grousemountain.com
Among Ski and Snowboarding, Grouse Mountain offers ice skating, sleigh rides as well as 4 snowshoeing trails.
Don’t forget Grouse Mountain is also home to The Observatory and Altitudes Bistro. Great dining options high above the Vancouver city skyline.
Mount Seymour
Mt.Seymour Snowboarding by Kris Taelemen
- Lifts: 5
- Number of Runs: 23 total / 12 lit for nighttime
- Green: 5, Blue: 14, Black: 4
- Vertical Rise: 330m (1082ft)
- Others: 3 Terrain Parks
- URL: www.mountseymour.com
Mount Seymour also offers 4 SnowTubing lanes and 8 Toboggan runs with 10km of marked and maintained snowshoeing trails.
Overall there is some pretty good snow action across all three local mountains. Robyn and I have been to Cypress and Grouse in previous seasons, but we have not visited Seymour so we cannot tell you which mountain out of all three we do prefer to go to. Actually, I have been to Mount Seymour, though that was back in grade school and were I learned to Ski. That would have been over 15 years ago though. We hope we get the opportunity this winter season to try out Mount Seymour.
If you have any other mountain info you would like to share, or would like to mention about which mountain is your favourite and why, please leave a comment below!
