The Grouse Grind

I take some pride in usually passing more than half of the hikers going my way, especially when it’s uphill.  When a twenty-something looks at me with his sweaty face and lets me pass, I receive more pleasure than it’s wise to show.  I just smile and say thanks.  I claim no diligence or special training, just good parents and the luck of genetics.

While waiting to board a ship in Vancouver, BC, that would carry a group of us to Alaska, I set out on what seemed a normal day hike, about the same distance and elevation gain as I’m used to.  It’s a popular hike with locals, and I expected it would come with lots of young people to pass, lots of smiles and thanks for me to give them.

They call it the Grouse Grind for its steep unrelenting grade as it ascends 3,000 feet to Grouse Mountain, a ski area in winter, and a local hiking challenge in the summer.

A few young hotshots came up and passed me in the first mile, but there’s always a few; they didn’t bother me.  And then more came, and more.  I hadn’t passed anyone yet.  By the time I was halfway to the top, a hundred hikers had passed me, and I had passed only about six.  I was a weakling compared to them.

 But there was one who stayed with me the whole way.  We leapfrogged each other all the way to the top, resting and hiking at the same overall rate.  Had she been the athletic type we saw in the recent Olympics, I might have felt better.  But given her weight an overall appearance, I could only express praise for her determination and stamina.  She thanked me and said I made her go a little faster then she would have.  

I told her that Canadian fitness is something I hadn’t counted on, something I haven’t seen.  Americans are softer, on average; I’m convinced of it.  These mountain hemlock and Sitka spruce trees seem to agree.