Arrow Lake natural arch paddle and hike.

[robon]

I have done this paddle/hike in the summer and fall, but never in the winter so gave it a go last weekend. I was originally wanting to do the hike with snowshoes, but we got a lot of rain and wet snow recently and I figured it would be crusty/hard packed. I was mostly right. I got my ass kicked a little coming back down and could have used an ice axe going up in spots, but it was surreal once I got up there and definitely worth it.



View of the lake driving up. The road gets up to several hundred feet above the lake at the highest point on the way to the put in spot at Deerpark.



Lots of snow once I gained a few hundred feet in elevation, and some weather moved in.



Headed across. Only a bit over an hour paddling time in total on this trip and it's a boat or paddle access only to get to the hiking trail.



Halfway across.



Looking back to the parking lot.



Made it across. Cabin and home owners on this side of the lake load up these barges with their gear and vehicles, and ferry across.





Trail was almost dry at the bottom and hard packed snow half way up. The trail disappeared on the last part of the hike and I had to punch foot and hand holds in the snow on a couple of sections. The trail is only around 2 kilometres one way but obviously much harder in the winter.



Taking a breather.



Bottom right is Renata beach where the hiking trail starts



Opposite side of the lake where I parked.



Arch coming into view. The natural arch is about 148 feet wide and around 100 feet above the ground at it's highest point on top.



It started snowing heavy when I reached the arch and made for some interesting shots.













This pic is from a trip I did in the fall a few years ago. Snow was too deep and it was also too icy to attempt to climb on top of the arch this trip. Really nice view from the top.



Back at the put in spot. The arch is barely noticeable from this side of the lake.

[Night Wing]

Thanks for sharing your trip by sharing it through all of your photos and taking the time and effort to post the photos.

[robon]

Thanks Wing. Now that I know how to do it, it's actually quite fast to copy and past the links from a site like photo bucket. Didn't take me long at all to do this. I just noticed that I posted one of the arch pics twice. Going back to the "allowing bigger image files thread", it sure would be nice to be able to go back and edit/delete pictures and comments for posts like this.

[deepmud]

That arch is super cool -the  way it's "laid back" at an angle makes it seem almost "impossible" to  be real. Great pics thank you.