Haven't we all emerged from the tree break at the top of Grouse Mountain (or any other grueling hike for that matter) and said 'I'd love to do that 13 more times?'*

*Disclaimer: For those of you who haven't hiked the Grouse Grind the 3km trek straight up Grouse Mountain is often lovingly called Mother Nature's staircase... which is entirely inaccurate unless by Mother Nature you mean a terrible monster and by staircase you mean a smorgasbord of creaky wooden planks, uneven terrain and an unimaginable plethora of mosquitoes. Fun, right?

steph takes on the grind

It’s no secret we’re big on goals here – make that big on big goals – so when the head of our recruiting team, Steph, proclaimed she was going to summit the peak of the Grouse Grind 14 times in a single day (smashing the current women’s record) we suppressed our immediate urge to call her crazy and, instead, showed up at the base of the mountain at 6AM ready to will her to the top over a dozen times.

getting out of the daily grind for a different kind of grind

Throughout the long and hot day, co-workers from our office and local stores made appearances to cheer her on. The power of declaring goals has never been more apparent: friends and strangers alike came out to do a Grind (or two, or three) with Steph and dozens more came out to do their first Grind ever knowing that they could conquer their own personal goals alongside someone else crushing hers.

dream bigger, fail harder

On the 11th summit (all of which were under one hour), Steph burst out of the trees with the biggest smile on her face saying, "Well, I guess that's what 11 Grinds looks like!". Daylight hours were dwindling and it appeared that 14 Grinds wouldn’t be in the cards before the night fell. Knowing it would feel better to finish on top (no pun intended), after 33km of vertical climbing and 44,000+ feet of elevation conquered, Steph called it a day (an awesome one at that).

a note from steph on failure

"Thank you for your hearts, your full days, your Grinds, your cheers, your snacks and your smiles; online and offline. Simply seeing you out there made my heart sing. I set a goal and failed. It was worth every damn step along the way. I hope you will set goals and crush them…and sometimes fail too. It keeps us feeling like we are living lives bigger than we could have imagined."

What are some of your big hairy audacious goals?

trail facts

trail length: 2.9K
elevation gain: 2800ft
commonly referred to as: Nature’s Stairmaster
number of people who climb the grind annually: 100,000

stairway to heaven (though it feels like hell)

total number of stairs: 2839 steps

to put this into perspective:
• Empire State Building: 1576 steps
• CN Tower: 1776 steps (to the main deck)
• Sears Tower: 2109 steps

random stairway fact:
The longest stairway listed by Guinness is the employee-only service stairway for the Niesenbahn funicular railway near Spiez, Switzerland. It totals a whopping 11,674 steps – the equivalent of climbing the Grind 4 times.

record breakers

race to the top
(it takes the average person an hour and a half to get to the top)
• male record: 23:48
• female record: 32:08

number of grinds grinded
• The record for the most total trips up the Grind is 1353 times.
• The record for the most trips up the Grind in one day is 15 times.

2012 opening morning stats

number of people who climbed the Grind during the opening day party: 1500

number of bears seen on the trail: 1

number of beers drank at the top: 433

number of sweet videos made recapping the morning adventure: 1