Definitely, you won’t call this one a sport. It’s just an activity, but a good one, and kids seem to really enjoy it. Where can one snow tube in Vancouver? It’s on mountains Cypress and/or Seymour. I don’t know, maybe you can practise it on mountain Grouse, as well, yet I haven’t been there yet. Anyway, what you do is going down the hill on a tube, — just have a look at the photos. It’s like a big vehicle tire tube, but has rubber flooring on the bottom.
What’s the difference in snow tubing between mountains Cypress and Seymour? On the first one you roll seated normally: you sit inside the tube, while it’s mandatory to lie down at Seymour on stomach atop the tube and thus slide down. The slope is a little steeper at Seymour, while at Cypress it’s longer. Furthermore, on Seymour there is a probability to go over the edge, which is at the end of the track, therefore two guys catch you there, just in case. But don’t give it a try to fly away like James Bond does in his movies. On the contrary, on Seymour it is made so that a barrier out of snow marks the track on both sides, hence there is no chance you’ll go astray J. An obvious advantage at Cypress — several persons can slide down, holding each other’s arms and feet, making so-called crystals or trains. On your demand they may also give you a super-duper spin, and off you go – yahoo!
The entertainment costs approximately 14 dollars per two hours and it is open from 10 in the morning. It’s over at 6 at night, however we suggest checking with their website for http://www.cypressmountain.com Cypress and for http://www.mountseymour.com/ Seymour. On weekends due to human crowds, they say, you may wait like 2-3 hours to get a tube. Therefore we recommend arriving earlier, when it opens. Or, in the wintertime during school vacations there are, too, lots of people. So why don’t you do it this way? Just let your children skip school for a day or so, come to the mountain, and enjoy! However, in order to be able to tube a kid must be no less than 122 cm tall, or 6 years of age. For this reason there is a tobogganing area right next door to snow tube tracks for smaller kids, and it has several slides, one imitating a cool one, i.e. a real tubing track. Yet, the tobogganing area closes at 4 p.m. so watch your schedule in case you have kids of different age categories.
There you can rent out cross-country skies, but it’s a separate story…
OK, and I wish you spending winter merrily!
Mitch