How many steps is the Grouse Grind?
2,830 steps over 2.5 kilometres, climbing 800 metres (2,624 feet) up Grouse Mountain. Most people finish in one and a half to two and a half hours. You cannot walk back down it: Metro Vancouver bans downhill travel on the trail, so the gondola down is $20 for an adult.
The one-way rule is the thing to plan around
People descending collide with people climbing on a trail one person wide, and the erosion from boots braking downhill is worse than anything the uphill traffic does. So Metro Vancouver made it uphill only. Budget the $20 gondola ticket before you start, because the alternative is the BCMC Trail next door, which is longer, rougher and unlit.
The trail also closes for the winter and reopens once the snow is off it, usually in spring. Locals check the status page before driving out.
2,830 steps is not 2,830 stairs
The Grind is a mountain trail with steps cut into it, not a staircase, and the count includes root ladders, rock shelves and lengths of timber pinned into the dirt. Some of them are a foot high. Some are closer to three. This is why a step count that sounds similar to the Manitou Incline delivers 600 more feet of climbing.
What your iPhone records
About 262 flights. 2,624 feet of ascent divided by the ten feet Apple Health counts as a flight. That is more flights than any building on earth will give you, including the CN Tower at 114 and the Empire State Building at 103.
Half a vertical mile, in a morning, and then you pay to come home.
What 2,830 steps equals
Each one links to where the number came from.