I decided to bounce back to the prominence list for this trip. My usual partners were busy so I ended up putting a post on a Facebook hiking groups saying I wanted to head over to the island the night before, car camp at the gate for Arrowsmith and start when it's light out. A girl managed to reach out to me and wanted to go for a little adventure so with that said I picked Adrienne downtown and caught the ferry from Horseshoe Bay in the evening and off we went.




It was Halloween when we rolled onto the FSR across the road from the main gate for Arrowsmith, we drove about 5 minutes before we found a spot far enough and quiet enough from the highway, but with it being Halloween there were a few random 4x4's driving the roads at night. It was abit sketchy at times, but we setup my hobo setup consisting of 2 bungee cords, a tarp and a couple poles. Jumped in the box of the pickup and fell asleep.




The next morning we had a slow start to getting ready, Arrowsmith isn't a big day so there was no real rush, we drove the road to the lower trailhead but saw no reason to stop there so we drove the relic up the spur road over some minor water bars. It was starting to become abit overgrown and more rocky but no problem for The Relic. We ended up driving to whole road to actual upper trailhead.





The trail itself is a very good footbed, and well maintained, it's worthy of a grind status as it's alot of elevation in a short distance. Not very exciting just grind it out until you get into the alpine.





Once we arrived in the alpine the views started to open up, and the rock started to appear. Adrienne was doing great and having alot of fun on the rock. The route up can kind of vary at times, just pick whatever works for you.





We arrived at the sub-summit and from there it's a 5min scramble upto the summit. There was a huge summit register, and a nice helicopter pad for us to lounge on for a good chunk of time.





We got to the summit quite early in the day, and on our way down started to see people heading up. It's a very popular island hike.





Down was uneventful, we got the truck where I showed Adrienne abit of tradition with some post hike beers which she really enjoyed. We got to the ferry terminal and had an insane wait due to ship issues at another terminal so we went to a pub 5min away to hit up appy hour. A very fun trip with a complete stranger.

How long does it take (return) from upper trailhead? Assuming low clearance cars can't make it past lower trailhead, how much extra walking is required? I am trying to figure if Arrowsmith is feasible as day trip from Victoria

My watch which I upload to strava stats were 6km round trip and 902m gain. and our total time was 3hrs 45min Strava said moving time of 2hr 38min but never know how accurate that is. A couple 5 min breaks and maybe 45min on the summit sounds about right.



If you had to park at the lowest lot add 1.6km and 205m gain to my 6km and 904m gain.

Thank you; this is all I really needed. Sounds like comfortable day trip from Vic

We used to rent a cabin on Sproat lake in the summer and always had it in my mind to take my kids up there. Unfortunately the FSR was always closed for forest fire danger, it gets very hot on this side of the mountain. I went up from the Cameron lake side years ago, thats a long day. Be a good overnighter. Arrowsmith has a great view of our coastal mountains. Don and Phyllis Munday famously first spotted "Mystery mountain" from here which led to a decade of epic exploration of the Waddington range.

If I were to do that, I'd do Cameron Lake - Cokely (great campsite right at the summit of Cokely that is relatively protected), then second day Cokely - Arrowsmith, then break camp and descend. Could even make it three days if you wanted to spend a night camping at the lake. The descent from Cokely to the pass between Cokely and Arrowsmith is extremely steep (read: scramble the entire way) and I wouldn't want to do it with a heavy pack.