The Grouse Grind

Wednesday after work, I headed off to do the 'Grouse Grind' with a mate from work. The Grouse Grind is a trail from the base to the summit of Grouse Mountain, and follows the path of the cable car (see pic).

The Grouse Grind is, indeed, a 'Grind'. I was expecting it to be tough, but I was not prepared for the hour and a half of hell that awaited me. The picture to the left does not give do justice to how bloody steep this mountain is. To give you an idea, the Grind takes you from 300m above sea level to 1100m, but is actually 2.9km long. It gets better: it's all STEPS!

The trail has markers at every quarter based on altitude rather than length and the first quarter is the easiest and also the longest and flattest. We were taking it 'easy' and all up it took us about 45 minutes to make it to the first quarter. Yes, it took us 45 minutes to climb 200 metres up the mountain. I was already stuffed at this point, with my heart pounding and legs burning and had to take a 5-10 minute break to catch my breath and regain my colour. We then made a start on the second quarter.

From here on, the quarters get shorter and steeper (and harder) and the half way mark is the point of no return as it's quicker to keep going to the top rather than walking back down.

There were dozens of people, of all ages and fitness levels, doing the grind with us and it was heartening to hear them all huffing and puffing.

After just under an hour and a half, I emerged drenched and wheezing at the summit. Beer and nachos have never been so good. Besides the sense of achievement, the view is awesome and makes it worth it.


Even though it was real hard yakka, I plan on doing it again and hopefully will do it regularly in future. Sadly, and obviously, the trail is closed during the winter months.

Vancouver Pride Parade 2007

Flag, originally uploaded by Tim McDonald.

Quite an eventfully weekend in Vancouver. Saturday saw the finale of the Celebration of Light fireworks and Sunday was the day for Vancouver's annual Pride Parade. Traditionally a gay and lesbian parade (like Sydney's Mardis Gras), it is now more of celebration of lifestyle and cultural diversity in Vancouver with many participants from the various communities in the city.

We headed down at about noon for kick off. We didn't have to walk far as the parade was along the street in front of our building. The organisers couldn't have picked a better day; bright blue skies and mid-high 20s. Quite warm for downtown Vancouver. Ironically, it was the worst conditions to take photos in with the bright sun overhead creating harsh shadows. This was made worse by facing into the sun, leaving my subjects' faces in shadow, but enough about that.

As you would expect most of the paraders were men; dressed in drag, leather, underwear or nothing at all. Despite being surrounded by families with young children, no one seemed to mind. The glitter and paint that I was told was ubiquitous last year, however, was seldom seen this time round; strange considering it's what I think of when I thing of a gay parade. This one's for you Robert: There were some women parading too; the most notably the girls in fishnets, and the girls dancing with huge feather arrangements a'la Rio's Carnivale.

Except for the naked blokes it was quite an enjoyable experience and the crowd and participants had a great deal of fun and the parade lasted about 2 hours. Afterwards, Trav and I headed up Davie Street for our regular Mongolian BBQ lunch.

More Fireworks

Celebration of Light, China 1 August 2007 - III, originally uploaded by Tim McDonald.

It was China's turn on Wednesday and they were far and away the best; plenty of big loud explosions filling up the sky. They also synchronised their fireworks to music better than either Spain or Canada.

The Finale was on Saturday with all three nations taking competing for 'victory'. I don't think there are any prizes awarded for the actual winner. Each nations put on a 10 minute display and pretty much recycled music from their earlier displays. Once again, China were the best, though I believe Canada may have 'won'.

'Twas a good evening: had 7 people over to watch the fireworks while drinking a number of bottles of assorted beers and red wines. The lowlight of the night would have to have been the dubious Szcechuan chicken from the late-night take away window at a near by Chinese place at 2am that Travis and I had. Most of it ended up in the bin.