One of the purposes of this page is to educate the reader and to pass on what I have learned through my outdoor experiences. With that aim in mind then, I will start this page by giving a little advice. Here it is. When deciding to take a particular hike based on a recommendation from someone, be sure you know something about that person. This is where I went wrong when I decided to take the judge's route up Mt.Arrowsmith. I had not heard of the trail until a casual acquaintance of about my vintage mentioned it as a lovely day hike. (In hind sight I realize that I should have taken better note of his lean sinewy physique and asked him for more detail.)
Now I ask, does this look like a hiking trail to you?
 |
The judge's trail is 2.5 km long and has an elevation gain of 1000 meters.
(1km)
Are they suggesting that the average staid elderly judge could do it?
How did it get its name I wonder. I did the hike on September 1st, 1999
with my daughter Susan. Here she is standing in one of the snow patches
that remained at the end of a cool summer.
 |
We did not complete the hike and unfortunately I cannot say exactly
how much further we had to go. We lost a lot of time finding the
trail head so ended up with a late start. A sign at the beginning
of the trail estimated time for the "hike" at 3 hours up and 2 hours back.
We went up for 4 hours and decided we had better turn back because it was
getting late and the weather had started to get dicey.
By that time Susan had determined that I had to stop for breath
once for about every 10 meters elevation gain. Had we known this
at the beginning, we'd have known it was a 100 rest climb and from that
we could have calculated how far we had left to go to the peak. Since
we did not come up with the formula until we were well advanced in our
climb, I am afraid all we had to go by was a visual estimation.
 |
 |
This picture shows how we had climbed.
So if the acquaintance that sent me off on this hike was less than candid, let's look at a more reliable source of referrence. The Alberni Valley Trail Guide will give you details of how to reach the trail head. Their instructions are clear. Sue and I hiked up a number of wrong turns because I am geographically challenged and get confused even when I have good instructions. The trail guide says there are three trails that will lead you up to Mt Arrowsmith and Mt. Cokely. See the map.
For starters you need to know that Mt. Arrowsmith is on the #4 highway that runs roughly east to west across the island from Parksville or Qualicum Beach to Port Alberni. It is a popular ski resort in the winter and the turn off is clearly marked on the #4 highway.
The judges route is the hardest/longest. They say it will take 6 hours.......we took 6 hours and did not complete it. (You must take into account that one of the chief hikers in our team of two was 55 years old.) I will have to try again so I can report my time on the whole round trip. Here is what the guide says about the "hike".
This is a non-technical route to the highest peak of Mt. Arrowsmith via a sloping ramp on the south side of the peak."Non-technical" means that you do not need ropes or pick axes. Gives you an idea of what kind of "hike" this is. My assessment is that this is either a very hard hike or a very easy climb.
Postmortem
1999 was a year of a heavy snow pack and a cool summer in
British Columbia. Everything was delayed. Mt. Arrowsmith is not a
high mountain and normally we would not expect to find snow on it at the
beginning of September. There was an unexpected bonus to our hike.
We had planned outings in June and early July to view the alpine
flowers. In '99 those hikes had to be cancelled unless we planned
to do them on skis or snowshoes. We were delighted to find in September
that we were revisiting spring.
 |
The flower below were growing in a crevice in the rock.
 |
Alberni Valley Trail Guide, Alberni Valley
Environmental Coalition, June 1999
available at the Tourist Information office as you enter Port Alberni.
