Full parking lots, traffic held as North Shore mountains manage crowds for New Year's Day

VANCOUVER -- Celebrating New Year's Day at the mountain is a popular tradition for many Metro Vancouver families, but the North Shore resorts are having to manage large crowds and too many drivers.

Grouse Mountain warned its visitors shortly before 2 p.m. that with the clear weather, it was already a popular day at the slopes.

"Please expect higher than usual volumes uploading and downloading on the Skyride," a post on the resort's Twitter account says. "Parking lots are full and the holiday parking shuttle is running from overflow lots."

With this beautiful sunshine it’s another popular day at the Mountain. Please expect higher than usual volumes uploading and downloading on the Skyride. Parking lots at the Mountain are full and the Holiday Parking Shuttle is running from overflow lots https://t.co/igOr5lqkZT

— Grouse Mountain (@grousemountain) January 1, 2020

Meanwhile, at about 3 p.m., Mount Seymour posted to Twitter that cars were being held 3.5 kilometres up the mountain. Every five minutes or so, 50 vehicles are being released to continue up, the post says. 

Holding traffic at the 3.5km mark. Releasing 50 vehicles every 5 minutes.

— Mt Seymour (@Mt_Seymour) January 1, 2020

Weather conditions wreaked havoc on the mountains' New Year's Eve plans, causing Seymour, Cypress and Grouse to all cancel their fireworks shows on Dec. 31. In the morning of Jan. 1, Grouse Mountain held its facilities on standby due to high winds and opened around 10 a.m., instead of the planned 8:30 a.m. opening. 

Even so, the foul weather wasn't all bad news, as the mountains got four to six centimetres of fresh snow over New Year's Eve according to their snow reports.