For most, the Grouse Grind is a grueling fitness test that is best served as an occasional hike that takes a few days to recover from.
For others, like Lower Mainland realtor Jason Chong, it’s a relative walk in the park that can be done multiple times a day and hundreds of times a year.
Chong is a mainstay on the Grouse Grind leaderboard, a list that tracks who has made the 2.5-kilometre trek up 800 metres of elevation to the top of Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver.
On Sunday, he made history by making his 5,000th trip up the trail that is often referred to as “Mother Nature’s Stairclimber.”
Grouse Mountain posted about the feat on social media, calling Chong a “local legend.”
Chong is no stranger to making history on the Grouse Grind, as he set a record in 2009 for the most times summiting the mountain on foot in one day at 13.
That has since been eclipsed, most recently by Vancouver’s Wilfrid Leblanc who holds the record with 19 climbs in a single day.
Chong’s stranglehold on the top spot on the most grinds ever list sure doesn’t look like it will be threatened any time soon.
He has completed the Grouse Grind nearly 1,500 times more than anyone else, as Colin Ellis White is currently in second place at 3,568.
