Killarney Day 6 - Thursday Aug 13/09

Well, I had a decent sleep last night (as decent as can be expected anyway - considering that every part of my body I try to lay on seems to be bruised). That is, until about 3:30am when a loon made its terrible sound. They are not peaceful creatures. And then I woke up realizing I was starving.

Such is life I suppose. We're not really consuming very many more calories than I would in an average day, but we're doing some pretty strenuous hiking for 6 or 8 hours a day. Luckily we have lots of snack food to fill the gaps between meals. But at 3:30 in the morning, all that food is tied up in a tree and there's no way I'm getting up to get any!

I woke up again at 5am and had a pretty restless sleep until 6am when we all got up. It still took us 2 hours to have breakfast, pump water, and pack things up. After watching a very pretty sunrise over the lake, and realizing that it was going to be a very long and hot day, we left our site at 8am. By 8:30am we had already climbed to the top of our first mountain of the day.

A quick hour-long 3km hike got us to the base of the mountain we've been both looking forward to, and dreading, for a week. Always a visible point in the distance, we were now ready to tackle the 1.7km climb to the summit of Silver Peak. At 589m in elevation, it is the tallest mountain in the La Cloche mountain range and a good 140m higher than any other peak we've climbed in the park.

We set up a tent at the bottom of the trail for Deanne (she had made it clear that she was not coming with us) and left all our gear with her. Josh & Heather and I made it to the top in about 50 minutes (we were on a time limit, so we were trying to go as quickly as possible without giving me a heart attack). Challenge-wise, its a well used trail, popular with both hikers and canoers and people of all ages. Other than being an uphill walk for an hour, its a much easier hike than I had been expecting.

Pretty great 360 degree view of the entire mountain range from the top. We spent a lot of time wandering around and taking a ton of pictures. There's a spot marked out at the top where a fire tower once stood and something written on the rocks which isn't quite legible anymore dated May 1955.



We boogied down the hill in about half an hour, re-packed our things, and walked another 3km to site H38 for lunch on Silver Lake. Its not a site I'd want to stay at - beautiful lake with a stunning white rock outcrop on the far side, but poor water access and very little privacy being that it's right on the trail (a lot of the other sites are quite a way off the trail. Sometimes you have to walk half a kilometre or more off the main trail to your site). 9km of hiking before lunch today! That's more ambitious than I am most days, that's for sure!

After lunch... tired, uber heat from the sun, sore toes & blisters, and stiff joints from sitting for an hour, and a lot of annoying uphill/downhills, made for a pretty silent afternoon on the trail. I fell pretty far behind for awhile. My knees just won't bend as quickly as the others, and I seem to be the one left huffing & puffing halfway up most of the hills. They say a group can only hike as fast as the slowest person. That would be me.

I have learned that I like being out in lead setting the pace because, believe it or not, on certain terrain (especially the open rocky stuff) I can actually gain some ground over the rest. Being in the lead also means that I get to see every new sight first!

But then the uphills or rooty woods trails start and I fall behind again. It doesn't bother me to fall to the back of the pack because I don't like to feel like I'm holding everyone up; I'm also not a fan of having anyone follow me so closely that I feel like I have a shadow. Not picky, am I? :P But I really don't like it when I fall so far behind that I can neither see nor hear the people ahead of me. I know they'll wait for me at their next break, but I always feel utterly abandoned. Severe pychological fear? Maybe. Go ahead, analyze away.

Anyhue... In my grumpy left-behind state, I at least got to see a moose track. That counts for something, right? Six days and no moose sightings. That's disapointing.

The afternoon was HOT but we just kept tramping along, taking breaks whenever we found a cool shady spot. Considering we had 13.7km (plus the Silver Peak trail for a total of 17km) to hike for the day and figured we'd be eating our supper on the trail before finding our campsite, we made really good time and actually got to our campsite around 5:30pm.

Site H47 - Heaven Lake. This is to be our home for the next two nights as we are taking tomorrow off and doing absolutely nothing - we ARE on vacation after all!

Heaven Lake has been a source of conversation for a day or so. What will we find at Heaven Lake?? A nice turquoise blue lake with a great swimming spot? Pizza? A cooler of beer? A Jacuzzi Tub? A campsite paved in gold? Ok... so our expectations were a little unreal, but man! A beer would be great!

Heaven Lake is NOT as the name implies. It's nice... I sorta like it actually, but it's a dinky little pond with not much for good swimming as the bottom is covered in gross green weedy slimy stuff, and we had some trouble getting space to set up 2 tents, AND we can't find a bathroom box. BOO. Not to mention that there's not much firewood around. So, heavenly, not really.

It gets its name from the view. Heaven Lake is at a higher elevation than the other lakes. It is a mountain lake. Right behind our site, across the main trail, is a lookout over a very pretty valley and lake much further below us. Heaven Lake is in fact IN the heavens.

Cheesy broccoli rice for supper followed by a big bowl of Dorito crumbs (they don't pack well, but they sure do taste good!). It's a lazy evening. We're all exhausted and don't really want to move let alone do the usual campsite stuff we should be doing. Been sitting around a campfire for awhile now. Stars are out nice and bright. Probably should get things cleaned up and head to bed. It's already well past our usual bedtime at 10:30 GASP! We really do need to get lots of rest so that we can do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TOMORROW!!! yay!