Vancouver Day 2: Grouse Mountain, waterfront

 Thursday, we headed up to Grouse Mountain. We took the shuttle from Canada Place. The day we went, there was an event where people did the Grouse Grind over and over again. (The Grouse Grind is where you hike from the parking lot to the top of the mountain. The trail is about 1.5 miles with 2600 foot elevation gain. We saw some people who had done it 10 times already!) We, however, opted to ride the Skyride up.

Going up Grouse Mountain. There was a school group with us so it was quite loud!

There were some neat wooden carvings once we were up top.

We went to see their two grizzlies. Grinder is the darker brown male. He's a bit mischievous and does funny acts. Coola is a lighter reddish brown male. He acts like the older brother, is more serious and weighs about 100 pounds more. They are not siblings but both came as cubs in 2001. Coola was 30-40 pounds and well taken care of (mom was hit by a truck) while Grinder was 10 pounds and malnourished.

How Matthew and Me compare to bears.

Megan and U

Coola is in the back and Grinder is in the front.

Grinder kept sitting down.

We went to an owl talk where we learned about Apollo, the great horned owl. He's a juvenile, currently weighing in at 1.3 kg with a wingspan of 25 cm. His eyes are yellow because he is not nocturnal yet--when he hunts at night, his eyes will turn dark. Owls have one ear up and one down so they can more accurately determine where sounds come from. They have a gland under the beak that helps them cool down (like dogs panting). He has 4 talons, all on one tendon. When hunting, 3 are forward and 1 is back. When resting, 2 are forward and 2 are back. He eats about 1000 mice per month!!!

We watched the lumberjack show which was fun. Lots of joking around and competition. We were rooting for the lumberjack on the right.

Chainsaw carving

Not bad for being made with a chainsaw!

Racing to the top. Our guy easily won.

Log roll

At the end, there was a "tourist" who climbed the 60 foot pole and did some stuff like juggling and standing on his head. He eventually fell/ziplined to the ground.

Megan, Me, Matthew and U with the lumberjacks and tourist.

We watched a birds in motion show.

Tritan, the juvenile bald eagle

Definitely see that bald eagle profile!

The red tail hawk captured its lure. It was cool to watch the hawk soar really high!

Turkey vulture

Great horned owl

Watching the falcon dive for its prey was cool.

The falcon was part peregrine falcon and part some other type.

We took the chairlift to the top of Grouse Mountain for some amazing views of Vancouver, Vancouver Island and the surrounding areas.

We saw Coola and Grinder on our way up.

Matthew, Me and Megan with nice views of Vancouver.

Snow!

U and Megan with mountains behind them.

Nice view of Mount Baker in Washington.

We got some beavertails to eat on our way out. They were delicious!

We stopped briefly at the kids' tree canopy.

Megan

Matthew

Me, Matthew and Megan with a couple of bears.

Bean has left her mark on Vancouver!

Matthew and Me were intrigued by the Nature Hike Challenge and decided to check it out.

This is what we found.

Turns out, it is stairs, stairs and more stairs.

With nice artwork.

The seasons change from spring to summer to fall to winter.

Go mom!

34 stories of stairs!

Yeah! Good job Matthew!

We walked down to the waterfront area. Here Me, Matthew and Megan are with the Olympic torch. It was about 8:30 pm but seems much earlier due to how light it was.

There are lots of nice green spaces within the city. This one was right by our hotel.