Vancouver with the family

The day after my mountaineering course, I got the bus back to Vancouver with all my bags to meet my family! It was Christmas last time all four of us were together, so we had a noisy, chatty reunion in a bistro before heading to a flat downtown to unpack.

We spent two days exploring the city together. I introduced them to MEC, Canada's outdoors store mecca, and we spent half a day just in there! We went to see the Capilano dam and fish hatchery, ate a lot of amazing food and did the locally famous Grouse Grind. The Grind is a very steep walk up Grouse Mountain in the north of the city. I was told it takes around an hour for normal people and 45 minutes for fit people. It took the four of us an hour and three quarters!! We were dripping with sweat when we got to the top and panted our way into the cafe for lunch. But we were rewarded at the top, not by the views as it was foggy, but by a long sighting of the two resident grizzly bears in an enclosure (they were orphaned and raised in captivity). Then we saw a falconry show of local birds, which was fascinating.