Backpacking Killarney

Friday afternoon of last week Josh and I set out from Hamilton around 4:00 to meet Deanne in Burlington, then to begin the long drive towards Huntsville where we would meet Amy and then would undergo the final preparations for our backpacking trip to Killarney. By 9:30 we were all together and by 11:00 we were ready to go. We spent the night at my Aunt's and Uncle's place so we could get an early start on the 3 hour drive the rest of the way to Killarney Provincial Park.

We entered the park early Saturday morning and headed out on our 9 day adventure bright eyed and bushy tailed and weighed down by our fully packed packs. I can safely say that all our packs were the heaviest we have ever had them considering we aim for the ultra-light backpacking type packs (usually between 20-25 pounds) but seeing how we were going for 9 days and 8 nights instead of our usual 3 days 2 nights our packs ranged from 25-50 pounds.

The park itself is nothing like any other provincial park I've ever seen in Ontario. I had no idea that Ontario really had mountains. When I'd read the literature I had envisioned something like the Niagara escarpments since everyone in Hamilton refers to that as "the mountain" so I was a little surprised, but it sure was beautiful.

We hiked 3.7km into our first site where we feasted in the rain. A meal of steak cooked on a rock, sweet potatoes roasted in the fire (although Amy's was a little more charcoal like - oops) and carrots also fire roasted. It was delicious, and went very well with Josh's home made strawberry wine :)

These next few pictures are from some of our sites and from along the way over the next couple days. Our actual trip break down is as follows:

-Saturday we walked 3.7km

-Sunday we walked 12.7km

-Monday we walked 8.7 km

-Tuesday we walked 12.2km

-Wednesday we walked 7.0km

-Thursday we walked 13.3km but Josh, Amy and I did an additional 4km such that we could check out silver peak - Deanne was having some vertigo issues with the peaks so she read at the bottom of the trail while she waited the 2 hours for us to get back.

-Friday was our day of rest (the seventh day of our trip and ironically we spent it on Heaven Lake)

-And Saturday we planned to go 12.9km but we hiked Sunday's 3km too so that we could leave the park a day early since it had rained all day on us and we thought it would just be nice to get home and dry.

The shore line of our second site.

Along the way somewhere on day 3 I think.

Crossing these types of things quickly became Deanne's favourite parts of the trip while I dreaded them cause I was sure one of these times I was going to end up in the water.

This here was our third dinner... the main course was couscous (a first for half of us) and then blueberry crumble for dessert using the freshly picked blueberry's we had gathered on our lunch break. Although it didn't look a whole lot like crumble when it was finished (nor did it really taste like a crumble) it was delicious and very very filling.

Fire... one of the many fires we had for cooking and to keep the mosquitoes away during that dusk hour.

Reflections as I play with my new camera.

Amy ready to set out on day 4 of our trip.

One of the many breath taking views we experienced along the way. Who knew Ontario had such beauty!?

This was another one of our sites. What you can't see here is how clear the water is. Because of all the acid rain in the region many of Killarney's lake were very harshly effected and the wildlife and plant life in many of the lakes is none-existent. This is very unfortunate, but at the same time makes for very nice swimming holes, and allows you to see the bottom of even the deepest lake so incredibly clearly.

This is the same site again but from further back on our site. The colour of the water reminded me of being in the Caribbean and seeing the ocean on the beaches.

More of what we saw and experienced as we hiked along.

This is Amy standing on the highest point of the entire mountain range we climbed all over - the pinnacle of Silver Peak. We were there early enough that morning that the sun had not burned off all the water from the air and so it looked a little hazy, but it was still amazing!! Although on a much smaller scale it really reminded me of going out west in 2007 and seeing the Rockies from on top of the mountain we climbed there (with the assistance of a tram).

Our final site on Heaven lake. We climbed upwards for what seemed for ever then we crested on hill and on our left hand side was this view of the trees and lakes below and on our right side was the view below of Heaven lake. I would assume this lake was not named Heaven lake for it's beauty or heaven like characteristics, but because it is a lake way up in the heaven.

We spent the morning of our day off washing laundry and swimming in the lake (which was the weediest and warmest of all the lakes we had stayed on).

Another view of Heaven lake.

This was about the most colourful sunset we saw the entire time we were in Killarney. But despite the sunsets being slightly disappointing, the one sun rise we saw was beautiful and the stars at night were breath taking. We found both the big and little dipper, the north star, a planet (Mars or Venus we didn't know which one), Cassiopeia's chair, the triangle one, the dragon, and a number of shooting stars too! It was an amazing trip! It was a little harder than anticipated, but totally worth it. I would certainly recommend backpacking Killarney to anyone, but the next time I go back to Killarney I would love to do it by canoe. Maybe next year. For more pictures you'll have to check out my Facebook album and Amy's cause I certainly was not able to take as many pictures as she did!