VASS Corporate Cup

Vancouver Adaptive Snow Sports held the 2nd Annual VASS Challenge Cup yesterday at Grouse Mountain. Today I saw some of the results of the event in video... and was really touched.

The promotional video was created by Giant Ant Media:



Dave Norona, one of Vancouver's most notorious adventurers, created this beautiful video highlighting his experience at the event. His adaptive teammate is a young boy named Karl who lost two of his brothers and was rendered paraplegic in a motor vehicle accident here in Vancouver not long ago. I quickly found myself moved to tears sitting at my desk this morning.



And here's another great video showing the excitement of the day.



Congratulations to all the teams who participated!

Y2Play 2009/10 Winter Season Passes are here!

I know you've been waiting for this moment if only for the sheer number of people searching our site for Y2Play. Well it's back. Yes, Vancouver's favourite snow pass - the Y2Play 2009/10 Winter Season Pass - is back in action for another year - this one taking you all the way through to the end of the 2009/10 winter season. Not only that, but 20% of this year's limited number of passes have already sold in the first 3 days.

If you want to get out on the hill and enjoy some of these great spring skiing conditions we've been enjoying, think about buying a Y2Play pass instead of a lift ticket. It is the best value season pass on the market, providing a season and a half of skiing or snowboarding for up to 80% off the regular pass price (and that's this year's regular pass price we're using to make the comparison). If you buy your pass today, you can use from the moment you pick it up right through the end of the current winter season, and then again from October 1, 2009 through April 2010. And, since Grouse Mountain is not an official Olympic venue, we won't be closing our doors or... er, turnstiles during the Games.

We are also offering a series of exciting incentives this year - worth noting is the $35 credit for every purchaser to put towards an Air Grouse Mountain Zipline experience! I was thrilled to have a sneak peek at the Phase TWO lines 4 and 5 just a couple of weeks ago. Here is the video from line #5 from Dam Mountain to The Peak. VERY fun!



Also, if you buy online you'll get a complimentary lift ticket to use over the next season and a half so you can bring a friend.

Please do not miss this. Every year we sell out and every year there are those who wish they'd heard about it... so tell your friends and don't let them get caught out. Join our email list, sign up for mobile alerts, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook... whatever works for you, just make sure you don't miss this.

Friends don't let friends miss Y2Play.

It's all in the details

I was thinking over the last few days about how to get the information to the people who want it. People like you, who are reading about what's new at Grouse Mountain.

If you're signed up to our email newsletter, you know we have about 427 different categories to choose from. Okay, I'm exaggerating - we have a dozen, and you can choose what you'd like to hear about. Hopefully you're getting most of the information you want. You can also change your preferences at any time by going through what looks like the sign-up process. Just enter your email address, then re-enter it and you'll get an email with a link to update your selections.

While email is great way for us to communicate important announcements to you, there are lots of little details that don't really warrant a message to your inbox. I mean, we know you get a lot of email, so we only want to give you the really important stuff.

It ocurred to me yesterday that I can let you know how you can get some of those less important details that might make the difference for you if you're a regular visitor to Grouse Mountain.

As you can see if you look just to the right of the screen, Grouse Mountain is on Twitter. I tweet stuff out as it seems interesting or relevant. I don't do a lot of conversational banter there, because I've never thought people really want to chat with a company much - that's like Maytag friending you up on Facebook. Just not right (no offense intended to Maytag... I'm just saying). Occasionally, however, the Grouse Mountain twitter stream will include replies to people who have asked questions.

You, however, don't need to join Twitter to get these updates. Unless, of course, you want to. Personally I love twitter - it's where I get almost all my news now, but I digress... What you can do, is subscribe to our twitter stream by RSS and get it in your Google Reader (or whatever other feed reader you use). Here is the RSS feed for Grouse Mountain's Twitter stream. Then you get the info without having to sign up somewhere new.

I could try to explain to you the type of info that goes up on Twitter, but why not just have a look and see if that's something you'd like to follow.

The Snow is AMAZING

Well this morning I took the opportunity to enjoy one of the best perks of my job... a little on-hill time. I decided to check out the new chairs and, well, the new snow.

As of this morning, we'd received 14cm in the last 24 hours and rediculous amounts in the last week. I found some fantastic powder on Paper Trail and under the Screaming Eagle chair on Cut.

Here are some photos from the morning...













This, incidentally, is the child safety restraint on the new Greenway Chair:



So come on up and join us during this beautiful Christmas break!

Winter Season Starts Saturday!

Grouse Mountain's 82nd winter season starts tomorrow at 8:30 am! Skiers and riders will get their first taste of Paradise.

Come experience Vancouver's newest high-speed quad chair, The Greenway, servicing Paradise Park for the season launch. This week's cool overnight temperatures and frequent snowfall combined with our ongoing snowmaking efforts to make this opening possible.

Stay tuned throughout the weekend and next week for updates on further terrain.

Some photos from today:







See you on the slopes!