In December we headed to Huntsville to see a concert by Hawksley Workman, which also happened to coincide with the opening weekend for Arrowhead Provincial Park. We took advantage of this great timing and planned a day trip into Arrowhead to do some hiking and snowshoeing.
Arrowhead just built a new visitor center and had their opening ceremony the week before our arrival, which meant we would be able to see this new center while exploring the park. We were keeping our fingers crossed that their tubing and skating rink would be open, but as we watched for updates we knew we wouldn’t have any luck because of the mild weather. Oh well, I guess we’ll have to make another trip to go skating and tubing later.
On Saturday morning we had breakfast in the hotel, packed our gear into the car and headed to the park. With this being the opening weekend we were hoping to get to the park early and beat any line up, which can be very long at peak times, but since most of the activities in the park were not operating yet, we sailed on through the park gates and on to the visitor center.
After chatting with a couple of the park staff, we headed out to Stubbs Falls to go snowshoeing. For Dan and I, this was our first time using our new Tubbs snowshoes. We had both upgraded our snowshoes early in the year because our old Costco ones had failed us, but all the snow melted before we had the chance to try them out.
The path to the falls was already well worn from other hikers, so snowshoes were not necessary, but we decided to wear them anyway. Unfortunately, after a few minutes on the trail, I started to have some trouble – the boots that I was wearing didn’t have a notch on the back to heel strap in place, so the snowshoes kept falling off. I guess I will have to use my other pair of boots for snowshoeing from now on. Dan, on the other hand, had a new pair of Merrell winter boots, which he had picked up for just this purpose, and spent as much time as possible off the trail and wandering into the fresh powder.
It didn’t take us very long to reach the falls which was a good thing since I was now having to carry my snowshoes in my hands. While at the falls, Hayden explored the rocks and was busy throwing ice into the water, while both Dan and I took some pictures. It was really quiet as there was no one else on the trail yet.
Tubbs at STubbs 
Stubbs Falls 
Stubbs Falls from below
We continued our hike and made our way back to the car. From there, we drove down the road as far as possible and parked so that we could hike out to the Big East river where the big bend, another one of Arrowhead’s famous views, is located. The sun was shining and it was nice and warm, so we took a few minutes to soak in the vitamin D and the views.
Our adventure was ending in Arrowhead as all our tummies were grumbling for lunch. We had the rest of the afternoon to explore and do some shopping in Hunstville before our evening concert with Hawksley.