I had been waiting for this trip since last year and was so glad I was finally here.  In the last post, Killarney Days 1 and 2, Rainy Plains to The Magical Mountains, I left off at the end of day 2.  We are staying on an amazing campsite on David Lake where we have a view of Silver Peak and on Day 3, the plan is to hike to the top of it.  I’d never hiked Silver Peak and was very excited to see how it compared to The Crack, possibly my favorite hike of all times!

I woke up super early on Sunday morning to another gloomy day… but the weather forecast said… arggg…. whatever.  I was going to go back to sleep but thought it best to hang the tarp in case it did rain.  This mornings breakfast was pancakes and I would prefer to cook them without getting soaked, so I quickly put the tarp up.

I again, was about to go back to bed, but then thought I should see if the sun was up or out anywhere. We’d not had a sunrise since we’d began our trip and it would be nice to see one here.  I went down the big hill to the waters edge and was thankful I did.  I got to see this cool vision above.  It was pretty strange but beautiful and I”m glad I took the time to go get the photo.

Well, I was awake now, so I went and got the food barrel down from the tree and started breakfast.   I made some hot chocolate for me and some coffee for Sam, both with a splash of baileys.  I then made strawberry pancakes with chocolate chips and heated up some precooked bacon I’d brought.  They were delicious as usual and we both ate happily.

We finished breakfast and then packed up our day bags. I had brought 2 cinch bags for us to use as backpacks even though they weren’t the most comfortable. They were small and easy to squish into my pack and helpful for taking on little adventures.  We paddled over to the portage where we would meet up with the Silver Peak trail and hike up from there.

The trail was very cool as expected and it boasted all types of terrain. When we started out it was just dirt and like any normal hiking trail.  As we continued on, more and more rock was visible and in some areas, it was entirely rock.  In those areas, there were inukshuks built to show us the way to go.  I was grateful for them.

There were also really cool finds all along the journey.  I came across these purple mushrooms and was amazed. I’d never in my life seen a mushroom like this in real life and then discovered a baby one beside it. Way too cool!  We started our ascent up as the sun rose higher in the sky and the temperature rose as well.

We came to a large opening with a beautiful view. Funnily, I thought at this point we were actually close.  HAHA!  Sam and I thought it was pretty cool we could see our campsite from up here and we opened our map to see what lakes and areas we were looking at otherwise.

It’s funny looking back at these pictures because when we were here, we actually thought we’d come quite a ways and were already amazed by the view.  But on the way back, this area was telling us we were almost back to the canoe.  We had only traveled a very short distance and had so much more to go!

Earlier we had been ascending, but now we descended.  LOL.  In the last photo above,  you can somewhat see what the plan is.  We needed to go up, then go all the way back down into a valley, then climb back up another big huge hill which would eventually lead us to the peak.  We had only just begun, but were anxious to get to the top.

We crossed streams and creeks, and sometimes we found ourselves actually walking right up them.  Sometimes we walked on rock, sometimes we walked on rocks, and sometimes we were in mud and on dirt or walking through water.  I loved all the different types of terrain we covered.

We also went by a lot of different waterfalls, all pretty and unique in their own way.  On many of them I would stop and put my hands under to cool my body down as it was pretty hot.  It was also surprisingly buggy for this time of year, although there was a lot of standing water, I guess it should’ve been expected.

Several times we thought we had to be close, only to continue walking another half hour or more.  Up, up, up and up we went.  Some places were harder than others and a few areas reminded me of the crack as well, but most of it was different even though familiar.

After two and a half hours of hiking, we finally made it to the top, or so we thought.  We spotted our campsite which we thought was super cool.  We were also totally amazed at how far we could clearly see we’d come.  It was almost unbelievable to me the distance we’d traveled, but my legs confirmed it!

After we sat and ate our lunch, prosciutto wraps with laughing cow cheese, we decided to take a look around.  Someone had mentioned there might be another peak and we didn’t want to have come all this way and miss out on it, so we climbed up some more and we found it!

We also found a plethora of wild blueberries which Sam took full advantage of,while I tried to figure out which lakes I was looking at from my high perch!

The view would never get old, but we were both tired and starting to run low on water.  I had been told by a friend that it would take about 4 hours round trip, but we were already at almost 4 hours and hadn’t gone back down yet. It was a beautiful hot sunny day and we were both wanting to spend the afternoon relaxing and swimming, so we took some photos and started our descent back down from the amazing Silver Peak, stopping at many of the water falls to soak our hands and heads and cool ourselves down.

It only took us an hour and forty five minutes to get back down which we both thought was good.  We both loved the hike and greatly enjoyed it.  We both got an incredibly large amount of new bites on our bodies and we both had fallen.  Sam cut her leg a bit on some rocks and was slightly bleeding but wasn’t badly injured. I slipped on a rock and fell on my back, landing on my backpack which somewhat broke the fall.  I wasn’t hurt badly but I had a nice black bruise on my back, a few on my bottom and I cracked the screen of my iphone which I’d been holding in my hand because I was videoing and taking so many photos, it didn’t make sense to put it away.  In hindsight, I would’ve and did put it in my back pocket the few times I did put it away, so I was grateful it was in my hand as it probably would’ve been worse off in my pocket. I was not having the best of luck with my electronics lately but I guess when you adventure as much as I do, sometimes those things don’t always survive.  No regrets in any way!

When we got back to site, we both drank a full nalgene of water and then jumped in the lake and cooled off.  It was so perfect and lovely out and we were very tired but also proud of our days accomplishments.  What a beautiful place Killarney is. I love it more every time I visit.

Our time was short in the water and the relaxing portion of our day, as we had gotten back so late.  After we were sufficiently cooled, we headed back up to the site to make dinner. Tonight’s meal was re hydrated  morel mushrooms and asparagus fried in butter and oil and mixed with angel hair pasta and a bit of oyster sauce and soy sauce.

This changed to basmati rice due to an issue we had with the pasta. I had some hot water leftover from the water I’d boiled to re hydrate the mushrooms and asparagus and put it in the pot with the pasta just to sit and that was a big boo boo. The past started disintegrating  I guess, and the water turned white and gluey.  It was pretty gross and I was definitely not eating that.  We put it in a ziploc to pack out and turned to the emergency rice that was with the just in case fish crisp to have with fish, which we found out we weren’t actually allowed to eat on David Lake, somehow by accident chatting with someone on the portage.  The rice wasn’t overabundant, but it was delicious and tasty and we ate some snacks and chocolate to make up for the smaller amount of food.  Not a huge deal but I learned a lesson today for sure!

We sat and ate and just enjoyed sitting and then cleaned up and put everything away.  The sun was starting to go down and I didn’t want to miss another gorgeous sunset.  We almost missed the amazing one yesterday and even though I was totally exhausted, I still was afraid I would loose out if I stayed put. Sam wasn’t up for moving at all, so I decided instead of trying to solo a tandem canoe, I would hike up to the top of our hill above our site and take a peek from there.  I was not disappointed, my legs were mad at me, but I wasn’t disappointed. I also got a signal from the top so I checked the weather for the next day and our departure.

It looked like it was going to be hot and amazing, of course.  When I got back down I talked to Sam about it and we decided we would pack up  early and head to Bell Lake. We had a 200m and a 745 m portage to do and then we would stop on bell somewhere and have a swim and eat our lunch and enjoy the weather for a bit before getting in the car and driving back home.

We enjoyed the fire for a little while,  but today was not getting any longer for either of us. We said goodnight and headed to our tents to rest our tired bodies and prepare for our trek out of David Lake tomorrow.

We got up a little later than the other days, meaning like 630 instead of 530, haha.  We both packed up our stuff and then I made up our breakfast of oatmeal with dehydrated apples.  It was really good and filled us both up nicely.

We packed up our bags and headed down the hill to the canoe. It was only 9am and we were ready to head out.  We said goodbye to our awesome site and hit the water, anxious to get all of our work done so we could enjoy some of the hot day.

We paddled to the far end of David Lake and found our small portage fairly easily.

As I had carried the canoe the first 2 days and Sam carried the bear barrel, Sam would take the canoe out today on the last 2 portages and I would carry the barrel. I thought this was a great deal, even though the food was down quite a bit, we had replaced the empty space with other gear to balance it back out.

Sam did a great job carrying the canoe and we did the first portage pretty quickly.  We were both really happy with the canoe we got from Killarney Outfitters.  It was so light and easy to carry, easy to paddle and they had provided us with some excellent customer service as well.

We got to the other side of the portage and enjoyed the scenery. It was extremely pretty and I loved paddling in this type of water. It was my favorite.

We made it to the next portage fairly quickly, as it was just a short distance away. We used the piggy back method as we had on the second day into David, carrying the canoe as far as it could be carried, then going back to get our bags and took them the full distance, returning for the canoe/barrel to do the second half. It worked well and we got through the portage much faster than expected.

We were once again rewarded with beautiful scenery on the other side, now back on Bell Lake and happy we had completed all the tough parts of todays’ journey, we could do some relaxing and enjoy the rest of our time here thoroughly.

As we paddled through Bell Lake we could see Silver Peak looming in the background. YUP! We climbed that sucker and survived! Yay us!

We found a gorgeous spot to stop for our lunch and swim.  I was actually surprised it wasn’t a site because it was that amazing.  The sun was now fully out and shining brightly and it was about 30 degrees, as forecast.  It’s nice when the weather network is actually right.  🙂

We ate the last of our food. Our planned lunch for today was 2 yr old white cheddar, marble cheddar and turkey kielbasa.  We were both pretty hungry after all the work we’d done and ate up the food quickly while staring off at the lovely views all around us.  After lunch we both went for a long swim over to an island nearby and back, and then dried off in the warm sunshine, both a bit sad the trip was coming to an end.

We took a few final pics and some videos to summarize the weekends adventures and then paddled the short 2km’s or so we had left back to the take out.  As we paddled in I noticed someone taking our picture and as we got closer, I realized it was my friend Martin, who had mentioned he was doing a Killarney trip soon.  What were the chances we would meet up?  Pretty slim I thought, and I was totally amazed at the rarity of the occurrence.  Thanks so much for the great photo Martin! So good to see you!

Sam and I unloaded the canoe fairly quickly and were back in the car in no time.  Sad to head home but happy about our accomplishments and smiling about the great weekend we fully enjoyed!

We made a stop at the Hungry Bear for some greasy food and some ice cream which was pretty tasty, and a few short hours later, we were saying our goodbyes in Sam’s driveway and talking about a new adventure to go on soon.

Thanks so much for checking out my post and for coming along on our adventure with us. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, comments or just want to say hi, please send a message and I will reply as soon as I am able to.  For now, I need to get packing. I’ve got a big outing planned for the long weekend (which will just be ending when this posts).  My longest solo trip and most difficult trip I’ve ever done.  I hope I make it out alive!

Stay tuned!

Big thanks to my friend Sam for the great memories and for being an awesome friend and camping mate!  Can’t wait to do it again!

Happy Camping!

Camper Christina

&

Sam