West North Vancouver · a host's guide
Edgemont Village and Grouse Mountain
Edgemont is a village in the old sense: a few blocks of shops and cafés owned by the people who run them, surrounded by quiet streets of family homes, with Grouse Mountain rising straight behind. Our guest house is a short walk from the middle of it.
The village
Edgemont Village sits at the junction of Edgemont Boulevard and Highland Boulevard. Within a few minutes' walk you have a bakery, several coffee shops, a small grocery, a butcher, a bookshop, a pharmacy, a liquor store, restaurants from casual to date-night, and the kind of gift and children's shops that make a rainy afternoon pass. It is genuinely walkable, which is rare on the North Shore, and the reason people who live here rarely leave it.
The Delbrook Community Recreation Centre, a five-minute walk from the guest house, has a swimming pool, a gym, a climbing wall and drop-in programs. Guests can buy a day pass.
Grouse Mountain, ten minutes up the hill
- The Skyride. An aerial tram to the top with a view over the whole city and the inlet. Runs year round.
- Winter. Skiing and snowboarding, including night skiing under lights, plus snowshoe trails, ice skating and a sliding zone. Rentals at the top, so you can arrive with nothing.
- Summer. The lumberjack show, a grizzly bear refuge with two resident bears, ziplines, alpine walks, and the Grouse Grind.
- The Grouse Grind. A 2.9-kilometre stair-climb straight up the mountain, roughly 850 metres of elevation. Most people take 1.5 to 2 hours. Open late spring to autumn, up only; you ride the Skyride down.
Capilano, five minutes away
- Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. The famous 137-metre bridge over the canyon, plus a treetop walkway and a cliff walk bolted to the canyon wall. Paid admission; book online in summer and go at opening or in the last two hours to avoid the crowds.
- Capilano River Regional Park and Cleveland Dam. Free. Trails through old-growth forest down the canyon, the dam with its view up to the Lions, and a salmon hatchery where you can watch fish climb the ladders in autumn.
Further afield, still close
- Lynn Canyon, fifteen minutes east: a free suspension bridge, a 30-foot pool and forest trails.
- Lonsdale Quay and the Shipyards, ten minutes: market, restaurants, the SeaBus to downtown.
- Ambleside and Dundarave in West Vancouver, ten minutes: the seawall walk, beaches, the pier.
- Cypress Mountain, twenty-five minutes: the third ski area, and the best sunset lookout over the city on the way up.
Getting to and from
- Downtown Vancouver is 12 to 15 minutes by car over the Lions Gate Bridge, outside rush hour. The bridge slows badly on weekday afternoons and on sunny weekend evenings.
- Buses from the village run to Lonsdale Quay for the SeaBus, and to downtown over the bridge.
- The guest house has free driveway parking with an accessible spot and a lit path to the door.
- The airport is 40 to 50 minutes by car.
