Mitch and I are what I like to call occasional hikers. So far on our travels, our hike in Laos was probably the most challenging. That is until we were told to climb Grouse Mountain! Grouse Mountain is approximately 3,700 ft above sea level and walking up it’s just under 3km. It’s often referred to as “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster.”
“Climb Grouse Mountain,” they said ‘Epic views over Vancouver,” they said. Unfortunately, the day we went, it was a tad cloudy.
As we set off in the morning, there was a slight drizzle in the air and it was cloudy. We knew this would prohibit the view, but as we arrived and spoke to one of the very friendly workers, she said just getting to the top is an achievement. The ‘average person’ takes an hour and a half hour, ridiculously fit people who do it on a regular basis can do it in forty-five to fifty minutes.
We had no records to beat, nor were we in any competition with each other, so we took is nice and slow. By nice and slow what I mean is, I stopped about every ten to fifteen minutes to take some deep breaths and have some water. The higher I walked, the colder it got. By the time we were up in the clouds, the rain was pelting down hard, which made it both refreshing and cold if I stopped for too long.
I’m happy to say that I made it to the top in one hour and forty minutes – slightly slower than average, but I’m going to blame that on the rain (wet stones), and the fact that I haven’t hiked in a while. Mitch made it to the top in an hour and a half. We had a victory pint of beer and looked at the unspectacular cloudy view, proud to have made it.
