Grouse Mountain
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Grouse Mountain is a ski area/tourist attraction located in North Vancouver, British Columbia.
The area at the bottom of what is now known as "The Cut" (one of Vancouver's most famous ski runs) is the original base of the mountain. It was here that the ski area's first lodge, as well as ropetow, was located.
The road that was built to access this base, the Mountain Highway, still exists and is currently only used for maintaining the ski area.
In 1949, the first double chairlift in Greater Vancouver opened*, allowing skiing down the Cut from the top of the ridge. This lift was removed in the 1970s.
In 1951, just a few years after the area opened, a lift, probably one of the longest, was opened. This lift ran from a bus stop on Skyline Drive at the bottom of the mountain to the base of the Cut. This lift was also removed in the 1970s.
When the original lodge burnt down in the mid-1960s, the government of British Columbia, seeing the possibilites for tourism, provided funding and permits for an aerial tramway up from the valley and new lodge to be built on the ridge.
The Blue Tram was built by Von Roll and was opened and dedicated on December 15, 1966 by Premier W. A. C. Bennett. Also constructed in the 1960s were the Peak and Blueberry Chairs.
The Inferno Chair, was built in 1973, and removed in late 2003, was one of the steepest ski lifts around, and also was in quite bad shape.
The mountain was purchased from its original owners by the McLauglin family, who provided additional funding for the construction of the Red Tram/Super Skyride in 1974. They purchased total ownership of the mountain in 1989, and constructed Canada's first high-definiton theatre, the Theatre in the Sky in 1990, by expanding the original lodge.
In recent years, the mountain has become something of a tourist attraction, as the area's dependence on skiing has been eased by the addition of a "native feast-house", "bear habitat", and high-speed quad lifts, as well as other things.
Grouse Mtn. is home to the Tyee Ski Club, an organization for training children and youth to become competitve alpine ski racers in Slalom_skiing, GS, Super-G, and Downhill competitions. The club also has a newer program for snowboarding racers.
* Grouse Mountain claims this lift to have been the "world's first". This claim is disputed by at least several other ski areas, making authentication difficult.
External link
- Grouse Mountain (http://www.grousemountain.com)