May 21 - Sproat Lake Trip Report

 

Sproat Lake – Stirling Arm – Trip Report – May 21

 

Linda Watson and Jim Swanson joined Ron Stephenson for the Stirling Arm paddle. Meeting at the Port Alberni Walmart parking lot, Ron led the drive from there to the launch site on Stirling Arm. We headed west on Highway 4 to the McCoy Lake turnoff then drove for about 20 minutes on a mix of paved and rough pot-holed logging roads which tested the shocks on our cars.

We parked on the side of Stirling Main logging road on the west side of Stirling Arm. The 100-metre-long access trail to the launch site was very rough and our kayak wheels were put to a good test. 

 

We launched from a small beach area at 10:30 under cloudy skies and headed east across Stirling Arm.

 

 It was quite interesting to see the contrast between the totally-wooded wilderness on west side of the Arm and the large homes and cottages on the east side. Many of the homes are quite large with a wide variety of watercraft tied up to large docks. 

 

We paddled north on Stirling Arm to where it meets Klee-Coot Arm. We could see down the far end of Klee Coot to Sproat Lake Provincial Park and the Mars Water-bomber Base. 

After rounding Stirling Point, we paddled around an island and saw the remnants of the burnt sections of Dog Mountain. In July 2015 a forest fire burnt a fairly large portion of the mountain right down to the lake and destroyed a number of the lakeside cabins. 

 

Reversing our direction, we paddled on the west side of Stirling Arm towards Fossli Provincial Park for our lunch stop. This wilderness park has a small gravel beach where we landed our kayaks. 

 

After lunch we paddled for about 45 minutes back to the launch site. After struggling with our kayaks on the very rough access trail

 

 we returned to our vehicles by 2:00 pm. Thank you to Ron for giving us a new perspective on just how large Sproat Lake is. We enjoyed exploring a part of the lake that many people aren’t familiar with. In total we paddled about 9 km and the lake was very calm for our entire trip.

 

Trip Report by Jim Swanson