During our stay in Vancouver we decided to visit Grouse mountain, only a 25 min drive from the centre of the city. Read more about Vancouver
This alpine covered mountain serves the winter skiers and in the summer months vast wilderness to explore.

How to get there

The free shuttle bus picks up at Canada Place in Vancouver. Tickets up the mountain are available to buy here for $56, with a discount if you buy online. The shuttle drops you back to the city also.

Once we arrived we rode the large gondola up the mountain, unfortunately it was extremely foggy on the way up and couldn’t see anything.
Apparently the views are supposed to be amazing, looking all the way down over Vancouver city and on a clear day you can see all the way to Vancouver island.

A short walk later, once you’re up the mountain there are a few more hikes to do.  Free shows i.e. a lumberjack show, which is mainly aimed at kids, and a bird of prey show.

The Bears

The highlight in my opinion is the 5.5 acre grizzly bear habitat. 2 grizzly bears live in this enclosed natural habitat, Coola & Grinder, they were both rescued as cubs. Grinder is the smaller but more dominant male.

As it wasn’t too hot the bears were out playing, and just foraging around, which lent to some good photo opportunities. They have 2 ponds and a thick wooded area for them to live in. Daily talks & feeding from the rangers are very informative and interesting. The fun part is trying to spot them in their large enclosure.
My mum was particularly happy as she had “see a bear on her bucket list” so that was ticked off.

Going further up the mountain

We left the bears and the weather cleared up a bit, so the chairlift to go further up the mountain had finally opened. In winter the mountain is used for skiing. The chairlift is an open 4 seater and wasn’t too enjoyable for me as I’m scared of heights. I travelled the whole way up with my eyes shut!

 

 

At the top there are a few more short walks to the edge of the mountain. There were chipmunks scurrying under rocks, up the trees, running so fast we could just about see them.

Once the sun came out we managed to get glimpses of the city way below through the clouds.
We decided to make our way down to the gondola and had a coffee before riding back down. You can take the free shuttle back to the city or jump on the local bus to the Capilano suspension bridge. Read more on Capilano bridge