Why is this even a thing?
Hey guys, what's up. Today we're hiking the Grouse Grind trail.
Vancouver's most popular trail by far.
The Grouse Grind Trail is primarily used for fitness, for exercise, for people who
basically just want to get in a solid workout, get a sweat in and for that it is fantastic.
One thing not everyone realizes is that those big 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 markers
are not the total distance on the trail. They're the elevation that you've
completed. So when you hit the one halfway marker you've done half the
elevation/ That's why sometimes it can seem deceiving. It takes forever to seem to
reach the first quarter marker and the final quarter seems to fly by. And that's
because the trail actually gets steeper as you go up. So the last half is actually the shorter in distance.
If you want a better idea of your distance it's better to
go by the GG markers. They go from numbers 1 to 40, and they're more or
less evenly spaced out along the hike. So when you've reached number 20 you're
roughly halfway through the distance of the hike.
The Grouse Grind Trail was originally built in the early 1980s by two local
mountaineers who basically just wanted to build the steepest trail possible so
they could get a workout in somewhere close to the city and train for their
mountaineering. They enlisted the help of some of their friends spent many
weekends chipping away at it and built it into what was at the time a very
rough and rugged trail. It has evolved over the years to be basically an
endless flight of stairs. But that's how it was originally built.
The Grouse Grind Trail is definitely not my favorite there's just way too many people on it.
and there's just way too many stairs for my liking. There's a reason it's called
nature's Stairmaster. That said there's a lot of good reasons so many people do
this hike one reason is that it's a good benchmark for your personal fitness. So
if you're done the Grind before you can establish your own baseline, and as your
fitness improves, you have a goal to strive towards and you can try and beat
your previous Grouse Grind time. It's also very accessible, especially in the summer
and the sun rises so early. You have lots of daylight you can even get up, hike the
Grind before you go to work. It's totally doable as an after work workout
as well. I think it's also popular especially with tourists or people
visiting Vancouver because seems like the Grouse Grind is almost the de-facto or
default must-do hike in the city. And there's,, you know if you want to get a
challenging hike in and you want to go to the top and see the view, and take the
gondola, see the grizzly bears, lumberjack show, all that it's great. But you're an
experienced hiker and you're looking for a real challenge, you know at the end of
the day the Grind is only three kilometers, don't get me wrong it is
steep and challenging, but there are much more challenging hikes around and ones
that lead to panoramic views of the ocean and as far as the eye can
see. So if you're visiting Vancouver and you're looking for a hike
that is, you know, the quote-unquote true Vancouver hiking experience, I'd keep
keep doing some research and find another hike.
All right. Basically done the hike here. Just coming down the BCMC trail since you're not allowed to down
hike the Grouse Grind trail. I did forget to mention, once you're at the top, there
are lots of other great hikes if you want to get a full day of hiking in.
Crown Mountain's a popular one, although very difficult. I'll put some links in
the description to this video if you want to check out some of the other
hikes that are accessible from the top of the Grouse Grind. If you're not
already, make sure you subscribe to your channel. We put out one or two new
hiking videos every month. And we'll see you next time!