Update: see below this post for an update that Jason sent out on October 30, 2013

In the early days of the Internet newsletters were quite common, but a few years ago they went out of fashion. But at least based on my own usage of them, they seem to be making a comeback, especially ones that curate news. There are a couple of them that I read daily, for example those of some newspapers (The New York Times), one about China (Bill Bishop’s Sinocism) and since a few weeks Jason Calacanis’ latest venture the Launch Ticker.

Even though I enjoy reading them I did not think I would ever be willing to pay for them. Well, in a way I pay for the NY Times one, because it incentivized me to take a subscription to the iPad version of the paper. Several of the others I subscribe to are actively trying to get people to pay, but I wasn’t sure how successful they were to get people to open their wallets. Some are regularly whining about the number of hours it takes to prepare a daily newsletter, others just have a daily ad in there trying to convince you to sign up for a paid subscription.

The threshold of paying is quite high for me, most information I get from newsletters I can also get from my RSS feeds, so why pay for it? I thought about this a lot, because I actually would not mind paying in order to get better content. And as an investor I always look for new or better ways to monetize content.

My conclusion was that I might be willing to pay for newsletters that would save me time (e.g. not having to go through all my RSS feeds) or would show me content that I would normally not see (e.g. translations from Chinese websites or newspapers). However, to stay with the above examples, I did not pay for either the Sinocism newsletter nor for the Launch Ticker, because they are both also available for free. Why spend money if you can get it for free, when there is no real benefit for paying?

But would I start paying if one of the newsletters suddenly would switch to a paid version only? Probably not, I was just not hooked enough to really miss them if they would not end up in my email box anymore. That’s of course a dilemma for content publishers: do you want a small number of subscribers who all pay or more subscribers who don’t pay?

Or is there a middle way? Today I realized there might be, because Jason convinced me to pay a monthly fee to get his twice-daily newsletters. How? Simply by still sending me 12 newsletters a week, but 3 of them with only the title and instead of the content a picture of a sad animal. That’s just genius, you see the headline (that’s normally inviting enough to open the mail) but then don’t get the content 25% of the time. Even though I probably would not pay if I would not receive any newsletters anymore, this method convinced me to put in my credit card details right away. As an added benefit I can now also comment on the Launch.co site, not a major feature but it feels good.

Too bad that the system did not work well yet: after signing up this afternoon I received a sad looking cat when I opened tonight’s email. I assume it’s just a technical glitch and that from now on the Launch Ticker will have only real content.

Great idea Jason, get them hooked and then slowly take the goodies away. I think this might be a good strategy for other newsletters as well and I hope you will share some of the results.

—

On October 30, Jason sent out the following update & strategy, probably interesting as a follow-up:

Quick update on our #sadpaycat strategy:

1. Every time we replace an email with the #sadpaycat about 25-100 of you become members. When we asked folks to become members in the past without replacing the content of the email we got 1-5. So, it’s at least 10-25x more effective to send a sad cat then ask you to subscribe. 

2. We are now at $2,500 a month in subscribers, or 30% of the budget of this research service. If we get 25 folks to subscribe each time it will take another 60 or so #sadpaycats to hit break even. That’s a lot of sad cats. 

http://launch.co/support

Possible strategy going forward:

a. 100% paid in email, free on the web: We’re thinking of making the email service only available to paid subscribers. 

b. 100% paid in email & web: we’re considering making this service only available to folks who pay. 

c. $10 a month / $99 a year price point: We’re considering making the product $10 a month / $99 a year. If you’re a professional $100 a year is nothing for the value this provides. If you’re broke any amount of money is a bummer. 

At the end of the day the LAUNCH Ticker is a year-long experiment that many important people tell me they love. The mass audience likes the product, the insiders love the product. 

As such we’re going to optimize for the insiders. This means we might run the service down from 20,000 folks a week consuming it to 2,000 paid folks paying $100 a year so we can have two or three full-time researchers. 

Last Friday I was at a Seraph Group conference in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco. During the day I talked with a lot of entrepreneurs and investors and I was surprised to see that even among this group most people did not know what Bitcoin exactly is. I don’t think I met anybody who had his or her own Bitcoin wallet.

That got me thinking, because I had assumed that Bitcoin would be more well-known by now in Silicon Valley. It’s actually good news, because it means the current value of Bitcoins (at the time of writing $158 on Mt. Gox, so 16% higher than during my last Bitcoin post and 60% higher since my first post about this currency in June this year) is still based on a very small part of the population understanding, holding or using Bitcoin. I keep on being extremely bullish on the virtual currency and keep on putting money into it.

Since my last post on September 9 quite a lot of things have happened with Bitcoin, the most important being the shutdown of the ‘secret’ website Silk Road (secret in the sense that you had to use Tor to be able to see it, so most people had no access to it). Silk Road was the number one marketplace for illegal goods such as drugs or weapons, and people paid in Bitcoin. The moment the closure was announced the value of Bitcoin dropped to about $100 on Mt. Gox, but within a few days the value was back at the pre-Silk Road exchange rate of about $140. This was an important fact, because it means that illegal activities like Silk Road are not the main reason why people use Bitcoin anymore.

Not only that, it’s also good that Bitcoin will be less associated with shady business deals. It now has the chance to be taken more serious, instead of being seen as something that’s only used for illegal things. Looking back I am happy Silk Road was closed, it was a scary but defining moment for the currency.

Another interesting development is that SecondMarket.com now gives accredited investors the chance to invest in Bitcoin without buying and storing these yourself. For most people holding Bitcoin is still something scary, because they don’t fully understand how it works and they are afraid of hackers. Especially if you put larger amounts into Bitcoin you want to make sure that your money is safe.

Therefore Second Market set up the Bitcoin Investmen Trust where you can buy certificates based on the current Bitcoin rate, and wherre you can sell them again at any time (at least after March 1 next year, until then there is no liquidity). I think this is a super smart idea that I should have thought of myself. I would advise any accredited investor who wants to put more than $25,000 in Bitcoin to look at Second Market, at least until the Bitcoin market will be more developed and wallets are easier to set up and use.

Last weekend David Lee of SV Angel (a well-known investment fund in Silicon Valley) wrote an interesting piece on Bitcoin: 10 Things I Think I Think on Bitcoin. Like me he seems to be very bullish on Bitcoin and he even says that if he would be in his 20s right now looking for a start-up idea and willing to do things others would not be doing (like most entrepreneurs!), he’d spend all his time trying to understand this topic!

David also understands that Bitcoin is much more than just a currency, because that’s just one application of the protocol. This is a fascinating thing and something I only started to see over the past couple of weeks. I won’t try to explain it here in detail, but if you are interested in what you could do with Bitcoin just read this Coindesk article about “colored coins”. Once people start to see this a whole new world of opportunities will open up.

Interesting is David’s observation that Bitcoin has many of the elements of modern “black swan” startups like Google and Facebook (I copy/paste his complete point 5 with some comments):

• highly polarizing – even and especially among early adopters and ‘experts’; –> I am surprised how many people want to argue with me about Bitcoin, the fact that I am so bullish leads to more heated conversations than with any other investment that I talk about.
• dismissive or downright hostile attitude by incumbents, usually non-technologists; –> I talked to several banks, but none is able to offer any Bitcoin related services. They don’t even look at this, likely because they dismiss it as not relevant for them.
• incompatible with and/or pushing against current legal regimes or regulatory systems; –> This is an interesting one, it remains to be seen how governments will react to Bitcoin once it becomes bigger. I believe it’s unstoppable, now they may still have a small chance to stop it from growing much bigger, but that window is closing fast.
• de-centralized thus involving crowdsourced-based content or activity; –> The whole Bitcoin protocol is based on a decentralized ledger and on the crowd for using and developing applications.
• false conventional wisdom that the service is only used for illicit or unsavory activity (e.g., everyone thought apps like YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook were used just for porn, hooking up, etc.) –> see Silk Road above
• unclear business model or applications. –> People only see it as a currency and not as a protocol which could even be used to take companies public without any authority regulating it, or for simple things as giving people a warranty coupon for a TV with a partial Bitcoin.

The more I learn about Bitcoin, the more I am convinced this may be the currency of the future. Today Baidu (the Google of China) announced that they also accept Bitcoin payments now for some of their services. I think that is a major breakthrough. China is already the biggest country for Bitcoin and this will only make it more popular. Theoretically Bitcoin could become a second currency in China, just like Tencent QQ Coins almost managed until it was more or less banned for real world transactions in 2009. The big difference is that Tencent’s currency was managed centrally (and could therefore be regulated), but that Bitcoin has no central authority.

The adoption will likely be very slow, but once the right tools are in place Bitcoin and its applications may be unstoppable. I therefore keep investing in Bitcoin itself, and with CrossPacific Capital we are also close to doing our first Bitcoin-related investment.

This morning it was raining hard when I woke up. I don’t mind a bit of rain (living in Vancouver means you’ll have to live with rain for most of autumn and winter), but when it’s Sunday morning and it rains so hard that you can hear the rain drops  hitting the windows I prefer to just stay in bed. However, I had promised Scott to take him to the Mosquite Creek Boat Show to look at some yachts, so I got up, showered and prepared breakfast.

When we wanted to leave I realized my wallet was not in its usual place. I assumed I had misplaced it, so I looked in a few other places but could not find it. Strange. I’ve never lost my wallet, at least not for more than 5 minutes (knock wood). So I tried to figure out when I had last used it.

That was yesterday when we took the gondola down from Whistler mountain into the village, after some mountain sightseeing and a late lunch in the Roundhouse Lodge (pictures see here). I remembered my father-in-law asked me how much lunch had been, and because I had not idea I checked the receipt. After that I don’t remember I used my wallet anymore.

After searching for my wallet for almost an hour I gave up. Either I had accidentaly dropped it in the gondola (I had Elaine on my lap, so I was not paying full attention) or someone had pickpocketed me in Whistler (very unlikely because I had the kids and my family around me and Whistler is not known for pickpocketing). Anyway, I decided to call the lost and found at the Whistler ski resort, where I got an answer machine (“We’ll listen to the messages at least once per day”). I left my name and number, but did not expect a call back.

I then worked a bit, I was not in the mood for the boat show anymore and was still annoyed with my stupidity. How could I be so dumb to lose a wallet, I could not get it out of my head. I made a list of all the things in my wallet that I had to cancel or renew (at least 3 credit cards and 2 debit cards, my drivers license, key cards for my parking garage and office etc.). I decided to wait a few hours, because there is always a chance someone finds it.

I locked myself in my study and among others set up a new Bitcoin wallet and wanted to transfer some coins into it (I spread the risk in case one of my wallet gets hacked). After doing that I went back to my main wallet and guess what… I was locked out of it. I had no idea why, but because there is quite some money in it I was a bit worried. I assumed maybe a cookie from the new wallet had caused an error, so I restarted my laptop. But still the same problem. It took me about 10 minutes (and a lot of sweating) to realize that I was using the password of the new Bitcoin wallet for my old one… I was just not thinking clearly because of my lost real wallet. I also realized again how vulnerable Bitcoin still is, I protect my wallets quite well but if you lose your passwords you have a serious problem.

Then Grace called me and told me lunch was ready. I went up to the living room but wasn’t in the mood for eating. Grace was talking to Scott who told her he had seen my wallet in the playroom. Grace asked him where, but he said he did not know. Then she asked if he had seen it last night, but he wasn’t sure. I didn’t pay too much attention to it, kids have a lot of fantasy and I had not been in their playroom last night. But then Elaine said that she had seen Scott with my wallet. What??? Grace questioned Scott and it turned out he had taken my wallet last night and hid it as a joke, but that he had forgotten that he had done so until just now. And worse, he did not know anymore where he had put it.

So I jumped up and went into the playroom. I scanned the room and indeed a minute later I found my wallet on a shelf behind some toys! I was very relieved. I wasn’t angry at Scott and was actually happy that he told me the truth (if I had found the wallet without him telling me I would have been less nice to him). But I also made clear that he understood that hiding a wallet is not a game he should ever play again.

Everything was still in my wallet and I was glad I did not cancel any of my cards yet – there were even 5 credit cards in there, I didn’t realize I carried so many on me. It taught me a lesson though, I am now going to take a scan of all my documents in my wallet and put them in the cloud. And I am going to carry less cards in case this should ever happen again. And I may revisit a company that I looked at a few months ago that developed a sensor for your wallet so you can more easily find it back!

This morning wasn’t too good, but the afternoon is a lot better: not only did I get my real and virtual wallets back, but while I’m writing this the rain stopped and I see the sun through the clouds. Time go go outside!

Fog above the ocean in Vancouver

Last night there was heavy fog in Vancouver, and for the first time since we moved here over 6 months ago I heard fog horns from ships passing by. When I woke up this morning the world was greyish white because of the fog. Although it had lifted a bit since the night before, we could hardly see anything beyond a few hundred meters.

We had planned to do a short hike, but because of the fog I wasn’t sure if we should not just stay at home. It was only about 16 degrees outside, a bit different from the warm summer weather over the past couple of days. But then I checked a webcam at Grouse Mountain and saw that it was sunny and 26 degrees at 1100 meters! It’s a weather pattern called inversion, which basically means that the temperature at lower altitudes is lower than at higher altitudes (normally it’s colder the higher you go).

This picture was taken less than an hour after the one above, but 1100 meters higher. No fog but sunshine!

So we took one of the cars and drove up to Cypress Mountain. Twenty minutes later we were out of the clouds and in the sunshine at the base of the Olympic ski station. We hiked a short trail around a mountain lake with the kids, they loved running around in the sun instead of looking at the clouds over the sea at home. And then we drove down again through the clouds, where it was raining when we arrived at the bottom of the mountain.

I love Vancouver, even if the weather is foggy you just drive up one of the mountains (or up to Whistler, 1 hour away from our home) and you’re back in the sun again!

A few months ago I started to do some research on Bitcoins (see my blog post from June 14 about this), a virtual currency that can be mined with fast computers. At first I wasn’t sure and thought it was a bit shady, but the more I read about Bitcoins the more convinced I was that this could be the next big thing.

I looked at a couple of Bitcoin start-ups for XPCP and I started changing ‘real’ currency into Bitcoins. As an economist I realize that Bitcoins are based on trust (just like gold or any precious commodity), but that the big difference is that supply is known in advance (there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins) but that demand can only go up. Ergo, the price of Bitcoins has to go up. It’s of course more speculation than real investing, but I am a risk taker and I believe this ‘gamble’ could pay off big time.

Bitcoins are still very volatile. When I made my first foray into Bitcoins the price was around USD 100 (see the chart in last blog post about the currency), then it went down a bit until the price started going up to about USD 140 a few days ago. At the moment I write this the price is USD 132. In my opinion still a great price to buy at, so I will keep on buying. I don’t know where the price will go, but as long as the trust does not go away (the biggest risk for any currency) more and more vendors will accept the currency and more people will start using it.

The biggest hurdle in obtaining Bitcoins is the process of going through an online exchange. Because I am not Canadian it was hard to do it in Canada, and in Holland I needed a local mobile number in order to verify my identity. Although there are no regulations yet for Bitcoins in most countries, local exchanges all want to become official, so they have all kinds of internal regulations to make sure they will be approved eventually.

But although it’s very hard now that will change soon, because the first Bitcoin ATMs wil be shipped next month, and the very first ATM will be located in Vancouver! I believe this might be a game changer. It will still be difficult to understand how to set up a Bitcoin wallet for most people, but once you have done that (or once someone has helped you to do that for you) you can buy and sell Bitcoin very easily at the ATM.

This will certainly drive the adoption of Bitcoins and make the currency easier accessible for people who don’t fully understand the mechanics behind it. In total there will be 5 machines installed in Canada this year, likely the other 4 will be placed in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Ottawa. Good to see that my new hometown of  Vancouver is the first to get one.

I am off to buy some some more Bitcoins!

My downhill mountain bike trip left me with one ‘serious’ injury, a bruised rib on the top left side of my chest. The problem with a bruised rib is not that it hurts all the time (it doesn’t when you don’t move), but that it can be very painful when you forget about it. At night I wake up several times when I move a bit in my sleep, and during the day I try not to use my left arm too much to lift things. If I laugh it is so painful that I will stop right away, and coughing is something I try to avoid at all costs right now. On Thursday and Friday I did not even take my convertible to the office (despite the warm and sunny weather), because getting in and out of the close-to-the-ground seats just hurt too much.

For today I had planned a serious hike with a Dutch business friend, but I emailed him on Friday night that I would not be able to make it. Each time I take a deep breath or take a step up or down it hurt a lot, and so I did not think I could do a mountain hike. My parents are in town and I had planned to do some serious sea kayaking with my dad, but even that I can’t do. I regret my mountain bike ride more and more, but I can’t change it and will have to wait a few weeks until the injury will go away (and when the best time of summer will be over…).

This afternoon I had it a bit with sitting at home and watching the sailing boats on the sea, and I wanted to something outside of the house. The women had gone shopping, so my dad, Scott and I drove my car up to the alpine ski station at Cypress Mountain. Originally we just wanted to take a look at what the ski resort looks like in summer, but  when we were there we saw a short trail, the Yew Lake Trail, that was accessible for wheel chairs. I did not even know that there are trails for wheel chairs, but because I feel semi-handicapped it gave me enough confidence to try to hike it. Scott was also very happy, because he knows I do a lot of trails but I never allow him to join me (most trails are either too long or too dangerous for him).

The short trail is beautiful, it starts at the lodge next to the parking lot at Cypress and loops around Yew Lake, which is a few hundred meters to the west of the ski base station. The trail is completely flat (at least for Vancouver standards) and very well maintained. You could indeed ride a wheel chair on it, or (in case you have young kids) bring a stroller.

Nature is (as usual on the North Shore) amazing, with partly covered swamps, a lake, old trees, many flowers and of course the mountains. Scott loved the 2 ski chair lifts that we came across as well and he told me that he wants to try them out once the snow start falling in a few months. I promised him I will take him there every weekend so he can learn to ski quickly.

If you are not in good shape or just want a short easy hike, the Yew Lake Trail is perfect. If you are looking for something more serious, there are tons of other trails that start at the Cypress parking lot as well. There is a bar/restaurant at Cypress that’s open in summer, so you can have drinks before or after the hike. Have fun!

My neighbour J. is a former Canadian freestyle ski champion and a fanatical downhill mountain biker. I see him riding regularly and he invited me to join him on one of his rides. So today after work we drove up Cypress Mountain to the alpine ski area, where we unloaded the bikes and got started.

I had no idea what to expect, but considering all the gear that I had to wear (leg protectors, arm protectors, a back protector, a helmet and gloves) I knew it would not be simple bike ride. It started off quite easy, we took a gravel maintenance road down (and later up) through the woods below Cypress until we came to the powerlines that go up from Caulfeild to Cypress. It was a sunny day again and nature was beautiful. J. told me some interesting fact about the plants that we came across and showed me several bear droppings (none recent, so probably no bears in the area). At the power lines there was a nice view and we made a short stop and had some water.

After that the real trail riding started, we hit a small bike trail though the woods that was quite scary at first. J. taught me some basic techniques and soon I was going down slopes that I could have never imagined to go down from. Basically it’s all about not being afraid, your bike can do a lot more than you think. I wasn’t really afraid, but I felt I did not have full control over my bike yet so when things were too extreme I just stopped and walked a bit. At the end of this part of the trail we hit a maintenance road and right before this road I did not pay attention. The result was that my bike slipped away from me and I fell pretty hard. Luckily I was protected well so it did not really hurt, but it scared me a bit.

From then onwards I paid better attention and took less risk than on the first part. I was also getting a bit tired. Downhill biking seems easy, but it’s actually quite hard. You have to control your bike the whole time and my legs were not used to that. Next to that you have to bike up every now and then, which takes some effort when it’s around 30 degrees on the mountain. The downhill ride is not just 30 minutes or so, but it takes a full 2 hours in which you have to concentrate on the trail, the rocks, the trees and your bike constantly.

On the second part of the downhill trail I went down a steep slope and felt the bike was going a bit too fast, so I hit the brakes. For some reason I was not thinking, and instead of just using the backwheel brakes I also used my front tire brake. The result: my bike flipped over and I landed next to it. It hurt a bit, but not too much, so I got on the bike and continued the ride. But I realized that I made the mistake because I was tired and I became even more cautious.

We then hit the top of the Cypruss Falls, where Sonja and I had a close encounter with a bear a few months ago. J. told me some of his bear stories, he has seen quite some bears in this area over the years but he is not afraid of them (he carries a gun and bear spray in his back pack, just in case). He also explained me how to spot cougars, there seem to be more of them this year (this morning there was actually one seen at Lighthouse Park, not too far from where we live).

The last part of the trail was a part that I had hiked with my sister once. It was not harder than the other parts we did, but I felt less comfortable than before and had to concentrate even more in order not to make mistakes. And then it happened: I again braked using my front brakes and again I summersaulted through the air, this time landing head first on the ground. I immediately felt a headache and I stayed on the ground for a few seconds before trying to get up. J. came over right away (he was ahead of me but heard the crash) and checked on me. Everthing seemed fine, but the rocks that I had landed on hurt quite a bit. I washed my face (it was covered in sand and mud) and had some water, and then we went down to Nelson Creek. I did not take any risks anymore after this last crash!

The last few kilometers were easy, but I was glad to be home again. I immediately took a hot shower and was surprised to see how bruised my body was. I probably hit a rock with my chest, because it looked like someone had beaten me up there. I had scratches and small wounds all over my body and generally I was very sore. A hot shower helped, but I’ll probably need a good sleep and 1-2 days of rest before I am okay again. My headache lukcily disappeared, so the helmet had protected me well and I had no concussion.

Looking back the bike ride was a lot of fun, but I am not sure if I am ready for this. If I will do it again I will first need to learn some more downhill techniques. I am glad I did it though, the experience was great and now I know what downhill biking is all about.

I wonder if I will ever learn it: always drink water on runs over 30 minutes on hot summer days.

This afternoon I left the office a bit earlier to hike up Grouse Mountain. Before my trip to China in July I did the Grouse Grind 1-2 times per week, but I had not climbed it since I came back. The weather was nice, about 25 Celsius (although my car told me it was closer to 30 degrees) and a beautiful blue sky.

I mainly drank coffee during the day, so I had a glass of water before I drove my car to the foot of the mountain. Because most of the trail is in the shade of the trees I did not think it would be very warm and so I did not bring any water. I normally don’t drink during this hike, because it’s less than an hour and there is a Starbucks at the end of the trail for water or other cold drinks.

When I started off I felt some muscle ache in my upper legs. I did not really understand why, because I didn’t run yesterday (my last run was a 7 km mountain run on Sunday). But then I realized it may have been from a semi-dangerous kayak experience on Monday. Scott and I had gone for a kayak trip to Whytecliff Beach, but on the way back the tide currents were suddenly so strong that Scott could not paddle against it. He therefore held on to my kayak and I had to paddle as hard as I could to get back to shore. It took me 45 minutes and we finally made it, but I was exhausted. I know I put my legs and knees against the top of my kayak to be able to have a more powerful paddle stroke, and that’s likely why I felt my legs today.

No big deal and after a few minutes of climbing the muscle ache had disappeared. At first the climb went quite well, but it was a lot warmer than I had expected. So warm that I could not really get into a good rhythm, I was sweating a lot and had to keep on getting the sweat out of my eyes.

About half way my legs were suddenly very tired. That’s strange, because normally on the Grouse Grind my breathing gets faster before I feel tired, but now I was still breathing normally, although my heart was beating very fast. I thought that it may be because of the food (I had sushi for lunch, maybe I did not eat enough calories to burn?) and continued my walk. But then I realized I was getting thirsty as well, which is unusual if I climb up only once. Quickly my thirst was getting worse but I did not bring any drinks and I had at least another 300 vertical meters ahead of me. Going down wasn’t really an option. Not only is it not allowed, but it’s also quite dangerous because the mountain is very steep in many places.

So I just walked very slowly and even had to stop a couple of times. When I saw other people drinking (there were quite some other hikers on the trail) I almost wanted to ask them for a sip, but I did not do that and continued on. I came to a point where I would have paid $50 for a bottle of water if there had been any for sale on the trail, but of course this isn’t China so there are no vendors climbing up mountains to make a few extra dollars.

When I got closer to the top the temperature was much lower (the end of the trail is at about 1200 meters, so it’s noticeably cooler there than at the bottom) and I felt climbing up the rocks was a little less difficult. I knew I would be able to make it, but it was still not easy. I pushed myself very hard and eventually reached the top. My time: 1:01, the first time that the Grouse Grind took me more than an hour while hiking on my own.

I immediately got a cold chocolate milk at Starbucks and it tasted fantastic. Within minutes my energy came back and once I could walk again normally I took the cable car down and drove home. There I drank a liter of water and ate a banana and now I am perfectly fine again. It was a good lesson though. The Grouse Grind is not your average walk in the park, and doing it without water on a hot summer day can be dangerous. I have been dehydrated while doing sports in warm weather several times over the years and I will try to make sure this won’t happen again – and certainly not on the Grouse Grind!