La Cloche Silhouette Trail
Killarney Provincial Park
Warning: Long report with many photos - but hey, it's supposed to be a 10-day hike! Best to leave now or else pour yourself a drink and settle in. Thanks to Heather and Richard for additional photos.
GPS tracks at the bottom of today's entry
Elapsed time: 28 hrs
Very rough guess at moving time: 26 hrs
Bear count: 1 (running away)
Richard and I have done a bunch of paddling trips in the Killarney area but haven't spent much time exploring trails. As a last-minute idea for my birthday, inspired by Sally, Kristen and Allison, I suggested that we hike the La Cloche Silhouette Trail, about 80 km. Thrilled that I hadn't suggested yet another trail ultra race, Richard was in. ;)
Heather was able to join us while Sean headed off to race in B.C. Angus planned to come until he experienced a close encounter of the bike/body/tree kind last Sunday. :(
We planned to hike briskly and not worry too much about the time, other than meeting a dogsitter deadline on Sunday at 6 p.m. We wanted to swim, enjoy views, take photos and gaze at stars without a strong sense of urgency.
After an early alarm on Saturday, we parked the car near our finish point in George Lake Campground and started hiking at 5:19 a.m.
It's a big campground and it was almost 2 km to the trail entrance with a little confusion since we hadn't brought the campsite map.
We were hiking the loop counterclockwise to hit the most consistently technical parts of the trail while we were fresh and had daylight to enjoy the best views. The first few kms were supposed to be easier so we started before sunrise. There was a heat warning with high humidity so it was going to be a tough day.
One thing we quickly realized: the word "easy" was relative. Although our weekend forecast was perfect, it had rained the day before. The trail crossed different types of rock, and one common type remained wet and slippery all weekend. We learned to recognize and avoid it but not before each of us had a big splat or two!
At first light, we reached Little Sheguiandah Lake and basically went nuts ooohing and aaahing and taking photos. What an amazing spot! It looked like a Group of Seven painting. (Did they paint here, GHOSLO?)
We were impressed by our friends who have run this trail - not to mention Eric Batty, who did it in 9.5 hours! It was slow going at times.
The climb up to and through The Crack is one of the highlights of the route.
We'd been told this would be one of the best views of the day so we took a long break at the top to enjoy it.
We posed for photos.
We took photos of each other taking photos.
We got excited.
We got contemplative.
We did yoga.
We updated Facebook and checked on Sean's race out west.
We practised meaningful gazes into the distance in case we're ever asked to audition for Boundless.
The morning fog burned off and the views got better and better.
With regret, we pulled ourselves away and rejoined the trail, which continued to be challenging in places.
I slipped and scuffed my arm while descending one of these cliffs and would have landed on my head if I hadn't grabbed a tree root. I can only imagine how difficult this would be with a heavy pack on a rainy day. We were all super careful since it would be hard to arrange a rescue in here.
We got beautiful views of Silver Peak.
Then we stopped at Silver Lake - gorgeous!
Most of the campsites were off-trail and downhill, and we needed to refill our water bladders often due to the heat. We'd hoped to swim in Silver Lake but the water didn't look that enticing so we just dipped our heads and shirts to cool off.
All of us had been up Silver Peak before so we'd decided not to include it. It was fun to meet all the excited people near the side trail turn-off. Other than that busy section, we met very few hikers in 28 hours on the trail.
We climbed up onto the wide quartzite ridges of the Hansen Township section of trail - my favourite part of the hike with open, spectacular views interspersed with small areas of forest.
This section wouldn't be fun in bad weather though. A solo backpacker told us about her scary trek up there in rain and hail yesterday.
We were still roasting so we took the portage trail down to David Lake to refill our water (again!) and go for a much-needed swim. Ahhh. We re-lubed our feet and Heather dealt with some unexpected hot spots.
We'd all packed surprise treats for the group so I called a halt when we were overlooking Little Mountain Lake and Great Mountain Lake in early evening light. I served Kahlua shots and orange-chocolate chip biscotti. Heather stared at me wide-eyed and asked in a small, incredulous voice, "Is that... alcohol?" She was rather pleased with my answer! ;)
After relaxing and enjoying Happy Hour, we decided to make the most of the remaining daylight hours since we still had some technical sections ahead. We plunged down a long, steep trail and turned off on the portage to Little Mountain Lake since we didn't know when we would find clean water again. Richard had brought two UV sterilizers, which worked pretty well but it was still quite a production to get all our bladders filled.
We'd been to Little Mountain Lake before on a couple of canoe trips when we were camping on Great Mountain Lake (highly recommended).
Richard and I remembered having Tobler with us on a day hike on the La Cloche Silhouette trail and we'd turned back because it was unsafe for a dog. We couldn't remember which way we'd gone from Little Mountain Lake; both directions looked familiar and both were steep. My AP log from July 2006 confirms that both Tobler and Mocha were with us.
In 2006, we went west from Little Mountain Lake first but hit a very steep climb early on so we turned back and went east instead. So we actually *had* gone both directions, which is why we couldn't remember which one was right!
Heather led the way up the steep climb west of Little Mountain Lake. Although it was mostly dry - thankfully - this was one of the hairiest climbs of the day. No wonder we didn't take the dogs up there!
Once we made it up alive, we had a great view back to Little Mountain Lake.
We pulled out our headlamps soon afterward. Heather surprised us with yummy chocolate chip shortbread - a great idea for a long trek. They are pure calories and taste awesome!
We enjoyed the final evening light along one of our last big open ridges.
This ridge overlooked Threenarrows Lake. As it turned out, it took us all 9 hours of darkness to approach and skirt this huge lake, only part of which is visible in this photo! At first light, we passed the bay at its southernmost tip before heading southeast to George Lake.
Although the trail is much easier on average on its west side, there are still technical moves. I slipped on a slick descent (maybe the "waterfall"?) and bent my right knee all the way back - ouch. Then there was a tall, unexpected cliff to climb as we were "descending" to the lake.
My well-used BashBlaster headlamp turned itself on and off a few times tonight, and it failed completely just after I reached the top of the cliff - phew! Luckily, its manufacturer was hiking nearby and pulled a warranty replacement headlamp from his pack for me to use.
When we finally got down closer to Threenarrows Lake, the trail became much less technical for a long time - and we paid for it as we each zoned out and went through our own period of sleepy staggering. We took a couple of catnap stops during the night. I wasn't sleepy for the first one so I just gazed at the stars but I was the one who had to call the second stop later on.
At 1 a.m., Richard announced a significant bathroom break. I wandered up the trail a bit and returned a few minutes later to find him with Heather; they were squatting together and shining their lights on something dark brown sitting on tin foil. Huh?!?!?
Oh! It was a birthday cake! (Thank God.)
Huge thanks to Coach LD, who baked a special backpacking cake with chocolate icing cleverly placed *inside* the cake. Heather had brought sparklers and Richard gave me a card. What a wonderful surprise party sitting on open rock under the Milky Way!
Heather surprised me with a birthday treat last year too since we were doing the World Rogaining Championships together. It has become a nice tradition. ;)
As we sat on the ground, we heard a loud crack as a huge tree branch slowly broke off and crashed to the ground nearby. Our headlamps were pointed to the sky but we had no idea whether it was coming our way. It would have been sad to be crushed during a birthday party.
One of the reasons I posted our GPS track online was for safety in the highly unlikely situation where none of us was able to go for help in an emergency. If that tree had fallen in our direction, that might have been useful... yikes.
Soon after that, we were very short of water and unfortunately woke up some sleeping hikers as we tried to sneak down a side trail to the lake. Luckily, they were friendly but I hope they got back to sleep right away. :(
There is a frustrating section of trail that skirts a narrow channel at the southwest tip of Threenarrows Lake. It's about 1.8 km west to a bridge, then 1.8 km east along the opposite shore. I could probably throw a baseball across the channel. We half-heartedly contemplated swimming but it was dark and our gear was hard to waterproof fully, so we just stuck to the trail.
Next up was the steepest portage in the park, known as The Pig. It was an old logging road and was not bad compared to what we'd done earlier in the hike - just long and rocky.
The last part of the hike to George Lake seemed to go on a long time but there were some beautiful moments.
Exhausted but happy at George Lake!
We turned the wrong way and added some extra distance looking for our car - our only real nav problem of the trip. But after a short nap, cool swim, clean clothes and a big, greasy breakfast, we were all smiles.
Thanks Heather and Richard for making this such a fun adventure! And thanks to Sian for sending that delicious cake. :)