La Cloche Silhouette Trail — My First Time Backpacking

I don’t recall what sparked the idea, but at some point in ear­ly August, I decid­ed to hike the La Cloche Sil­hou­ette Trail in Kil­lar­ney Provin­cial Park. The Sil­hou­ette Trail is noto­ri­ous for being dif­fi­cult, both in terms of the hike itself and also in mak­ing reser­va­tions. Most camp­sites are snatched up as they become avail­able. swoop

Soon after, I man­aged to snag a work­able 4‑night clock­wise pro­gres­sion of camp­sites for mid-Octo­ber:
Octo­ber 11: H16 — Three Nar­rows Lake
Octo­ber 12: H23 — Moose Pass
Octo­ber 13: H37 — Sil­ver Lake
Octo­ber 14: H47 — Heav­en Lake

After book­ing the camp­sites, I active­ly ignored the trek to con­cen­trate my atten­tion on our oth­er trips that sum­mer. We returned from our B.C. road trip in late Sep­tem­ber and I became pre­oc­cu­pied by La Cloche Sil­hou­ette. Lily, Porthos, and I had done sev­er­al “hard” day hikes on the trip (Sea to Sum­mit Trail near Squamish, Frosty Moun­tain Trail in E.C. Man­ning Park, and Towab/Agawa Falls Trail at Lake Supe­ri­or Provin­cial Park). Our suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of these sup­pos­ed­ly hard trails inflat­ed my con­fi­dence and ego.

As Octo­ber 11th approached, I read about the trail, scru­ti­nized the ele­va­tion gains, par­tic­i­pat­ed in online dis­cus­sions, and bought new gear (satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tor, trekking poles). But it was advice from my neigh­bours from across the street, who had tried and aban­doned the trail years ago, that I ignored at my per­il: every ounce of gear mat­ters. Instead of lis­ten­ing, I expressed that my biggest wor­ry was fin­ish­ing each day quick­ly and get­ting bored alone at camp, you know, because I’m so fit and invul­ner­a­ble.

–

As is tra­di­tion­al in this house­hold, no mat­ter how big the adven­ture, we always pack our things the night before a depar­ture. As I slow­ly assem­bled my pack, Lily sug­gest­ed that bring­ing Porthos could make the trip less lone­ly. Dogs are per­mit­ted, but most sources rec­om­mend against tak­ing them due to some tech­ni­cal scram­bles. Porthos is almost 11 years old, but he’s a very fit senior pooch, and he man­aged all those dif­fi­cult trails in Sep­tem­ber with­out a prob­lem. I agreed to bring him, adding his sleep­ing bag and pad, because the nights would be cold and he doesn’t have a par­tic­u­lar­ly thick coat.

My pack weighed about 38 lbs with all my essen­tials, a full 2 L water reser­voir, and the dog’s accou­trements. Not bad. Porthos would car­ry his own food, bowls, and brush. And then, against Lily’s advice (and my neigh­bours’) I made a cru­cial error—I added a fur­ther 12 lbs of cam­era equip­ment. She tried to con­vince me that this is a per­son­al trip and that my phone should suf­fice for pic­tures, but I couldn’t be swayed. And that’s why my pack totalled 50 lbs.

For con­text, I’m 175 cm (5’9”) tall, about 65 kg (143 lbs), and 41 years old. So my total hik­ing mass would be 193 lbs.

October 11 — Day 1 — George Lake Campground to H16

I woke up at 05:50 after going to sleep at 01:45. Porthos and I man­aged to leave the house at about 07:15. The dri­ve to Kil­lar­ney from Toron­to is a good 4‑plus hours with­out stop­ping, but I need­ed a wash­room break and a fuel stop, so we arrived at the park office short­ly after 11:40. By the time I parked the car and got ready, it was past noon. I took the fol­low­ing pho­to at 12:24 at the trail­head.

We encoun­tered five day hik­ers between the trail­head and the ridge that over­looks a small stream between Lums­den Lake and a shal­low marsh. It became exceed­ing­ly qui­et beyond that point.

Two bridges span that stream; the first was col­lapsed, but the sec­ond was stand­ing. After cross­ing it, we climbed up to a flat quartzite ridge whose dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures were sharp stri­a­tions and thick patch­es of moss and oth­er short plants. That’s when I lost our path for the first of many times to come. I spent sev­er­al min­utes wan­der­ing around the rocky dome and refer­ring to my dig­i­tal copy of Jeff’s Map of Kil­lar­ney before find­ing where the trail resumes.

About 7 kilo­me­tres into the hike, while I was slow­ing down to adjust my heavy pack due to dis­com­fort, Porthos alert­ed me about some­thing behind us. A man emerged from a bend we had just passed and quick­ly caught up. He had an apple in one hand, and chew­ing through a bite, asked which camp­site I was head­ed to.
“H16,” I respond­ed.
“I’m head­ing to H17. Good luck!” And then he was off, pass­ing me effort­less­ly and con­tin­u­ing along the uneven, slip­pery rocks like nobody’s busi­ness.

Porthos was hun­gry and tried to catch up with the man because he asso­ciates apples with treats. I became envi­ous of his quick pace and made a fruit­less attempt to match it before real­iz­ing it was too fast and risky. You don’t have to hike far from the trail­head to see how haz­ardous the La Cloche Sil­hou­ette can be. Rain ear­li­er that morn­ing left the very rocky ground slick, with count­less hid­den haz­ards beneath the autumn leaf lit­ter.

About two-thirds of the way to our camp­site, we reached the base of the mon­stros­i­ty known as The Pig—an 18-degree ascent stretch­ing rough­ly 500 metres up a gul­ley of rocks rang­ing in size from soft­balls to beach balls. Any part of me not already drenched in sweat at the bot­tom was soaked by the top. Porthos, mean­while, bound­ed ahead eas­i­ly, stop­ping every so often to watch me strug­gle behind him. Like the eye of a hur­ri­cane, the short lev­el sec­tion at the top offers only a brief reprieve because it’s fol­lowed by an equal­ly long and dif­fi­cult descent. Too focused on my foot­ing, I missed the mark­er where the trail splits from The Pig, and end­ed up stum­bling onto sev­er­al parked boats and the rust­ing remains of an old truck by the shore of Three Nar­rows Lake. I knew about the truck from Jeff’s Map, but hadn’t planned on see­ing it. After a few pho­tos, Porthos and I climbed back up a quar­ter of the way to rejoin the prop­er trail.

Short­ly after The Pig, we reached a dam sep­a­rat­ing Three Nar­rows Lake from Kirk Creek. Signs warned against cross­ing, but the short­cut was too tempt­ing. Kil­lar­ney Out­fit­ters’ trail guide cau­tions, “Once Kirk Creek is reached, it may be tempt­ing to cross here to avoid tak­ing the trail all the way around. This course is inad­vis­able as the trail is dif­fi­cult to rejoin upon reach­ing the oth­er side!” Wrong—it was sim­ple to rejoin: head up, up again, and left.

The 2.5 kilo­me­tres from the dam to camp­site H16 were thank­ful­ly flat, though rid­dled with mud­dy, over­grown marsh­es. By then I’d stopped car­ing about get­ting dirty; pain had tak­en pri­or­i­ty. The 50-pound pack was wear­ing me down. My shoul­ders felt ten­der­ized by the straps, send­ing sharp spasms through my mid­dle traps and into my neck. My hip flex­ors cramped from an over­tight­ened belt. A pres­sure blis­ter had begun form­ing over a bony promi­nence between my SI joints. Even the soles of my feet ached. Porthos, mean­while, was doing well—just hun­gry.

By the time I saw the H16 mark­ers and fol­lowed the path into my reserved camp­site, my body was fin­ished. I was look­ing for­ward to relief and qui­et, but instead, saw a pitched tent. Two guys emerged from the left. I don’t recall our exact exchange, but I was tired, sore, and in no mood for sur­pris­es, so my greet­ing wasn’t exact­ly warm. They’d start­ed at H6 that morn­ing, aim­ing for H19, but one of them had devel­oped severe knee pain some­where along the way. They decid­ed to aban­don their plans, turned back, and chose H16 as a stop for the night.

H16 is an odd site. There’s excel­lent water access, but the best tent pad sits deep in the woods, far from the fire pit, which, for some rea­son, has a clear view of the thun­der­box.

I told the guys I’d set up near the water and fire pit. My tent was small enough to tuck into a flat space between trees. They’d already gath­ered dead­fall and start­ed a fire, though it was most­ly smoke. I had no time or inter­est in a fire, so I sug­gest­ed they move their wood else­where.

Camp chores are tedious and time-con­sum­ing. I had to pitch the tent, set up my sleep sys­tem, fil­ter water, feed Porthos, assem­ble the stove and pot, and change into clean clothes—all before dark. The sky had cleared, but the sun was sink­ing fast and the air had cooled. While the stove warmed water for my freeze-dried meal, I took a skin­ny dip in the lake to rinse off. I last­ed about thir­ty sec­onds, just long enough to wash the sweat off.

The cold water and rough rocks made my feet ache even more. After dry­ing and dress­ing, I rinsed my dirty clothes, wrung them out, and hung them to dry. The pot had boiled by then, so I rehy­drat­ed a meal and made tea. I ate it with whole wheat pita and shared some with Porthos.

We crawled into the tent around 21:00, long after dark. I’m gen­er­al­ly uneasy at night in the wilder­ness, but the faint chat­ter from my neigh­bours was odd­ly com­fort­ing. That night, I dreamed that a large ani­mal was sniff­ing around my tent, pok­ing its nose into the fab­ric, and punch­ing it in the face.

October 12 — Day 2 — H16 to H23

I woke about an hour before sun­rise. The air was chilly—enough to keep me in the tent anoth­er thir­ty min­utes before com­mit­ting to the day. A thin fog drift­ed over the lake, and the clothes on the line were still damp.

I low­ered the bear hang, boiled water, and made oat­meal and cof­fee for break­fast. Porthos got a gen­er­ous serv­ing of kib­ble fol­lowed by spoon­fuls of oat­meal. He loves Peo­ple Food™.

Once the sun cleared the trees, I real­ized the clothes­line was still in shade and moved it into sun­light to help things dry faster. Even so, I had a slow start, leav­ing camp at 10:30—about an hour after the two guys had set off.

Find­ing the cor­rect route out of camp proved annoy­ing­ly dif­fi­cult. I went down the wrong path sev­er­al times, adding a few hun­dred metres of back-and-forth before locat­ing the actu­al trail. Strange­ly, it pass­es with­in about twen­ty metres of the thun­der­box, which is in direct view.

The trail start­ed off flat and easy, fol­low­ing the same pat­tern as the land­scape north of the Kirk Creek dam. Despite the mild ter­rain, the weight of my pack turned uncom­fort­able, then painful, with­in the first two kilo­me­tres. I had to stop often—leaning the pack against a tree or rock, or bend­ing for­ward at nine­ty degrees with my arms braced on the trekking poles—anything to relieve the pres­sure and restore cir­cu­la­tion to my shoul­ders and waist.

I met two pairs of hik­ers walk­ing coun­ter­clock­wise. The first, two women between H18 and H19, greet­ed Porthos and exchanged some pleas­antries. Lat­er in the after­noon, near the quartzite ridge between H21 and the water­fall ascent, I met anoth­er pair—also two women—on the sec­ond of their three-day cir­cuit. An impres­sive pace. Their first day had tak­en them from George Lake to H37, where I was sched­uled to arrive the fol­low­ing night. This encounter was the incep­tion of a thought: could Porthos and I make it back to the car from H37 in a sin­gle day instead of two? I won­dered…

There wasn’t much time to dwell on it. Min­utes after part­ing ways, we hit our first real obsta­cle. The quartzite pass end­ed abrupt­ly, and the trail dropped steeply into a stream val­ley. The descent isn’t long—barely a blip on the ele­va­tion profile—but the ini­tial rocky fun­nel was tech­ni­cal and awk­ward with a heavy pack, and com­plete­ly impos­si­ble for Porthos with­out help. This is where a dog har­ness with a stur­dy han­dle is non-nego­tiable. Lift­ing him down short ledges is easy enough, but here the rock shelves were chest-high, slip­py, and uneven. On its own, the scram­ble down was man­age­able. What made it ardu­ous was Porthos pan­ick­ing. First, he refused to approach me, and then retreat­ed back up the rocks, either afraid I’d make him fol­low or hop­ing to find his own route. He usu­al­ly can, but this time there was no alter­na­tive path. It was either down or hike back to the car.

It’s hard to get Porthos to obey gen­tle com­mands when he’s afraid. That isn’t to say I didn’t try, but after sev­er­al min­utes of baby-talk­ing from a nar­row ledge of bro­ken boul­ders, my patience fal­tered. I snapped and yelled. It wasn’t my proud­est moment, but it worked. As the echoes fad­ed, his head appeared from behind a rock a few metres above. Hes­i­tant, he climbed down toward me. When he came with­in reach, I grabbed the han­dle of his back­pack and held tight. With my free hand I found a secure hold against a rocky edge, shift­ed my foot­ing, and low­ered him to the ledge below. There was nowhere to escape from there, so he wait­ed while I climbed down again, found my bal­ance, and hoist­ed him fur­ther down. Bit by bit, rock by rock, we scram­bled down past the rock­fall to the for­est floor.

At the bot­tom, the trail fol­lowed a nar­row val­ley beside a stream lead­ing to the next obsta­cle, the water­fall ascent. Jeff’s Map describes it as “Medi­um Cas­cade,” All­Trails says you must “Scale Water­fall,” and Olek­san­dra Bud­na describes it as “hik­ing down through a water­fall (I’d like to empha­size the word through)…”

I’d been dread­ing this climb all trip. Then we got there, and it was pathet­ic. There was water, and it was tech­ni­cal­ly falling, but call­ing it a “cas­cade” felt gen­er­ous. The only work­able route ran to the right of the trick­le, over large rocks and tree roots. Only once did Porthos hes­i­tate at a ledge, but a firm, “get your brown ass over here!” did the job. I sus­pect the ear­li­er rock­fall taught him to trust the log­ic of being lift­ed by that back­pack han­dle.

The stretch between the water­fall and camp­site H22 was steady and unevent­ful. For rough­ly half the dis­tance, lakes sat to our left and ponds to our right. Camp­site H22 was emp­ty. It’s perched on the south­ern shore of a name­less lake with steep water access. Not long after pass­ing it, Porthos and I began the long descent toward H23, our home for the night.

H23 was one of the worst camp­sites I’ve ever stayed at. It sits deep in a decid­u­ous val­ley between two steep hills. By our arrival on Octo­ber 12, many of the trees were bare, and the ground was car­pet­ed in damp leaves. I wouldn’t see sun­light again until climb­ing out the next morn­ing.

But wait—it gets worse! A mea­gre creek trick­led along the bot­tom of the val­ley. To reach it, I had to clam­ber 5–8 metres down over slick rocks and roots cov­ered by leaves, then squat over wet rocks while col­lect­ing water from a stream bare­ly deep­er than my filter’s intake throat. It took patience, but I even­tu­al­ly filled my four-litre capac­i­ty.

Then came the mat­ter of bathing. I was soaked in sweat and the air tem­per­a­ture was drop­ping, but I need­ed to wash before chang­ing into warm clothes. For a moment, squat­ting naked over the creek and splash­ing myself seemed workable—until I pic­tured Gol­lum hunched in his cave. Instead, I returned to camp, stood naked and bare­foot on my small foam sit­ting pad, and washed with cold fil­tered water, one hand­ful at a time. I had an audi­ence of one: Porthos watched the entire ordeal. It wasn’t pleas­ant or thor­ough, but it worked. At half a litre down, it was the most effi­cient show­er I’ve ever tak­en.

The val­ley dark­ened quick­ly, and camp chores remained. I found two trees for a clothes­line and hung up my damp gear. Porthos ate his din­ner and a lit­tle extra. I ate my freeze-dried pas­ta with black beans. The bear hang took near­ly twen­ty min­utes because none of the near­by trees had ade­quate­ly strong hor­i­zon­tal branch­es. I rec­om­mend using a bear can instead of rely­ing on hangs.

I was tired but not sleepy, so I lay in my sleep­ing bag with Porthos snor­ing beside me and checked the Apple Fit­ness sum­ma­ry. The num­bers didn’t add up. The expect­ed dis­tance between H16 and H23—listed as 16 kilo­me­tres in both Kil­lar­ney Out­fit­ters’ chart and the dig­i­tal ver­sion of Jeff’s Map—showed as 19 kilo­me­tres on my Apple Watch. I start­ed to sus­pect drift in the num­bers around H20, but it became obvi­ous when the watch chimed 16 kilo­me­tres just before the water­falls. Poor sig­nage might have added some extra dis­tance, but not three full kilo­me­tres.

Around 02:00, the wan­ing gib­bous Moon rose over the val­ley walls, throw­ing mov­ing patch­es of light across the tent.

October 13 — Day 3 — H23 to H37

I woke around 07:00. It was still twi­light, but bright enough to man­age with­out lights. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the damp val­ley had soaked my tent—inside from con­den­sa­tion, out­side from dew—and every piece of cloth­ing I’d hung to dry was now wet­ter than the night before. Fan­tas­tic.

I record­ed a short vlog over break­fast, most­ly com­plaints about the camp­site and my pack weight. The loca­tion was so mis­er­able I didn’t both­er tak­ing pic­tures; the image below is a frame from the vlog.

Pack­ing up felt like play­ing The Floor is Lava. I tried to keep every­thing off the wet leaves, hop­ing to avoid adding more water weight to the pack.

We left camp short­ly after 09:00. With­in min­utes of cross­ing last night’s mis­er­able creek, the trail launched straight into one of our biggest climbs—about 130 metres of ele­va­tion over 800 metres of dis­tance. It was too ear­ly for this shit. To make mat­ters worse, I’d for­got­ten to apply deodor­ant. Halfway up, dur­ing a rest stop, I removed my pack and shirt and sprayed a gen­er­ous amount. I already felt gross, but I didn’t need to stink, too.

At the top, we were reward­ed with the best view so far. The for­est stretched below in cop­per and crim­son patch­es of autumn colour. Porthos rolled in the tall grass like a lunatic while I stood catch­ing my breath. That’s when I noticed some­thing odd. Some­one had aban­doned a heavy-duty tri­pod and a Man­frot­to flu­id head on the rocks. I’d long since accept­ed the bur­den of my own ‘light­weight’ tri­pod, but this thing was enor­mous. I guessed it weighed 15–20 pounds. Who­ev­er car­ried it up here must have decid­ed a few thou­sand dol­lars in gear was worth less than the ener­gy to haul it out.

After a short break, we descend­ed into the for­est, mov­ing across alter­nat­ing ridges and low­lands. That’s when my frus­tra­tion with the trail mark­ers hit its peak. Every new bald peak of quartzite meant slow­ing down to hunt for cairns. Some were huge, oth­ers bare­ly knee-high; but all too often you couldn’t see the next one from the last.

We were deep in the most remote part of the loop, equal­ly far from both the trail’s start and fin­ish. Get­ting lost here would be a prob­lem. Even down in the open for­est parts of the trail, the ground was car­pet­ed in leaves that erased evi­dence of the path. I relied on sec­ondary clues: foot­prints in the mud or sub­tle com­pres­sion in the foliage con­firmed I was on track. Oth­er times, those traces van­ished and the faint trail forked with no mark­er to guide me. My patience wore thin. I cursed Ontario Parks’ aloud! The stan­dard should be sim­ple: if the path isn’t obvi­ous year-round, the next mark­er should always be vis­i­ble from the last. Any­thing less is neg­li­gent. And cairns should be distinct—spray paint them blue or some­thing!

About five kilo­me­tres in, we entered a short but bru­tal sec­tion of wet for­est that felt like walk­ing through a 200-metre car­wash. Wet leaves soaked me with every step, the trail turned to mud, and vis­i­bil­i­ty dropped to a few metres. It would’ve been a ter­ri­ble place to sur­prise a bear.

We soon emerged into an open decid­u­ous val­ley where the trees had shed half their leaves. There we passed the only back­pack­er we’d see all day. I say “passed,” because the man gave a quick hel­lo and kept walk­ing with­out reduc­ing his pace. Not everyone’s a talk­er.

Around the ten-kilo­me­tre mark, we came to a shal­low stream. Porthos wasn’t inter­est­ed in drink­ing direct­ly from the source, so I took off my pack and fil­tered fresh water for both of us.

Just before step­ping off the last rocky ridge north­east of Bound­ary Lake, I took my first fall. After a brief rest and snack, I had set off too fast and stepped from soft moss onto a leaf-cov­ered slab. The leaves con­cealed wet rock beneath; my foot slipped, and I went straight onto my back and slid sev­er­al metres before stop­ping where the rock met the dirt. Porthos slid down after me, seem­ing­ly amused. I lay still for a moment, wait­ing for pain that nev­er came. The pack had cush­ioned the fall.

The trail then descend­ed through for­est toward a small stream feed­ing Bound­ary Lake, cross­ing a shal­low rock chan­nel. Anoth­er kilo­me­tre brought us to a fork in the trail that lead up to Sil­ver Peak. In the dis­tance, a group of day hik­ers was descend­ing. It was late after­noon, and my watch claimed we’d already exceed­ed the 18 kilo­me­tres between H23 and H37. The map showed we were close, but the lack of pre­ci­sion was irri­tat­ing.

The next 1.6 kilo­me­tres were pure bliss: wide, well-trav­elled, two-lane trail that’s near­ly flat and with per­fect foot­ing. We made excel­lent time until the next fork—where a sign announced H37 was 1.1 kilo­me­tres away. That final stretch was a steep, rocky slog.

The 100-metre side path to H37 fea­tured a steep descent with a taunt­ing view of the camp­site below and no easy way down. But the strug­gle was reward­ed. The site was excep­tion­al: three tent spots, excel­lent water access at two sides, and a fire pit that was nes­tled between rock slabs which were per­fect for sit­ting. The only flaw was the place­ment of the thun­der­box, which was posi­tioned too promi­nent­ly.

We arrived just as the sun was set­ting, which forced me to rush through camp chores. In hind­sight, I regret not pho­tograph­ing the cliffs across the lake awash in gold­en sun­light.

The north side of camp offered an easy descent to the water. Sev­er­al boul­ders dis­ap­peared into the cold water, with a flat one just under a metre below the sur­face. It was a per­fect plat­form for a quick rinse.

While refill­ing water on the south side, I real­ized we had neigh­bours at H38, just sev­en­ty metres away. They called out a greet­ing, but Porthos start­ed bark­ing at them before I could respond. From my van­tage point, their site looked treach­er­ous: sheer rocks and poor water access.

That night, I reflect­ed on the past three days. The pace was tak­ing a toll, and my watch’s inflat­ed dis­tance read­ings were ham­per­ing my morale. My clothes were per­pet­u­al­ly damp; I was down to one clean shirt and pair of under­wear. So I kept think­ing back to the two women doing a three-day cir­cuit. Sure­ly Porthos and I could skip overnight­ing at H47 and just fin­ish the trail tomor­row. It was tempt­ing, but I was uncer­tain about the true dis­tances.

I texted the idea to Lily via my satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tor. Between her replies, I dou­ble-checked the map and metic­u­lous­ly mea­sured the dis­tances myself. Every source agreed on the num­bers. And yet, my watch showed three extra kilo­me­tres on today’s hike—21.2 instead of 18.2 between H23 and H37.

By my mea­sure­ments, the dis­tance from H37 to the exit should be 22.5 kilo­me­tres. Lily’s research sug­gest­ed clos­er to 26 or 27. That meant poten­tial­ly 15–20 per­cent more walk­ing. I was will­ing to push myself, but I had to con­sid­er Porthos’ endurance. I resolved to stop think­ing about it and sleep. We had to get an ear­ly start the fol­low­ing morn­ing, regard­less of whether it’s our last.

October 14 — Day 4 — H37 to ???

I woke just before 06:00, beat­ing the alarm by a few min­utes. Dawn was still an hour away. I lay there plan­ning the day: leave as ear­ly as pos­si­ble and aim for H47. If we reached it before 12:00, we’d rest briefly and push for the fin­ish. But if Porthos showed fatigue—or if we arrived lat­er than 12:00—we’d stick to the plan and spend the night. Hik­ing unknown dis­tances in the dark wasn’t worth the risk.

Ris­ing ear­ly meant nav­i­gat­ing the camp­site by head­lamp. Between break­fast and pack­ing, I set up my tri­pod to cap­ture a time-lapse of the sun­rise over Sil­ver Lake. Pre­dictably, I was a slow­poke at pack­ing up. We left camp just before 09:00—my ear­li­est start yet, but still lat­er than I had hoped—and had three hours to reach H47.

Leav­ing H37 was as dif­fi­cult as enter­ing it, just in reverse. We climbed over bald rock and through sev­er­al ascents before round­ing the south­ern shore of Sil­ver Lake where I stum­bled upon an excel­lent unof­fi­cial camp­site (with fire pit!) just steps north of the trail. It had a great view of both H37 and H38 across the water.

The first two kilo­me­tres were pleas­ant and the path was easy and shad­ed. Then came the day’s pat­tern: climb, cross, descend, repeat. A gen­tle for­est walk would end in a steep 45-degree ascent. We’d pull our­selves over roots and rocks onto pale pink slabs of quartzite, nav­i­gate our way across sparse mark­ings, descend again through root tan­gles and stone, and start over. Over. And. Over.

Some­where north of Bun­nyrab­bit Lake, Porthos and I met a friend­ly pair of back­pack­ers, a father and his son. When I men­tioned my watch was record­ing longer dis­tances, the younger man said his Garmin was doing the same. This non-sci­en­tif­ic sam­pling gave me some reas­sur­ance that my Apple Watch wasn’t the prob­lem.

We arrived at H47 on Heav­en Lake at 11:58. In fact, we almost walked past it. Heav­en Lake is a depres­sion with­in a large dome of quartzite (Check for your­self on a map). The pass lead­ing to it from the east was poor­ly marked. Cairns help, but they show where the trail is, not where it’s going. When you can’t see the next one, you rely on sec­ondary clues—like flat­tened grass and footprints—but these can van­ish eas­i­ly with a shift in light or angle.

That’s how we almost walked past H47. For­tu­nate­ly, the lake to my right looked sus­pi­cious­ly scenic, so I checked the map and found that we were near­ly on top of the camp­site. We stopped to rest at the water’s edge. Porthos ate his sec­ond full meal; I chewed a crunchy bar and fin­ished my trail mix.

Heav­en Lake is small but beau­ti­ful; it’s about a third the size of Sil­ver Lake. Its ele­va­tion gives a clear view south toward Geor­gian Bay but makes it breezy. This gave me a chill after a few min­utes of rest, so we didn’t linger. Sur­pris­ing­ly, I had cell recep­tion (Telus/Koodo), so I called Lily and told her to expect us that night.

About half an hour lat­er, along a wide for­est path, we met two more backpackers—men in their ear­ly thir­ties and expe­ri­enced. The chat­ti­er one sized me up and, after glanc­ing at the cam­era gear, admit­ted he was sur­prised I’d made it this far with so much weight on my back. He showed me his offi­cial (and water­proof) map of Kil­lar­ney Park, fea­tur­ing the dis­tances and ele­va­tion pro­files between every camp­site. Accord­ing to him, we still had six to eight hours of hik­ing ahead. Not great. Not ter­ri­ble.

For the next fif­teen min­utes the trail descend­ed steadi­ly over even ground. Until it didn’t. The path tilt­ed upward into a steep climb tan­gled with roots and boul­ders. Two mark­ers mocked me on the way up: “If hik­ing were easy…” read the first. “They’d call it canoe­ing :)” fol­lowed the next. In my mind, I fan­ta­sized being Homer Simp­son and stran­gling the writer just like Bart. I hat­ed them.

By now, I resent­ed both the quartzite and for­est sec­tions equal­ly. The for­est teased me with rest­ful­ness only to force me into anoth­er climb. Porthos held up remark­ably well—leaping up ascents when he could make the jump—but his fatigue was vis­i­ble. Each time I paused to read­just my pack, he’d sit or lie down instead of sniff­ing around. The longer our breaks, the slow­er his restarts.

The trail mark­ers on the final approach to The Crack were mad­den­ing. We need­ed to cross a small rift and climb out, but only two mark­ers were visible—one on each side—with no hint of where to actu­al­ly cross the gulf. I even­tu­al­ly found it, but lost time in the search. (It’s to the left and down; not straight or right.) Then we climbed to the quartzite out­crop lead­ing to The Crack, and it was bru­tal: big steps and steep ledges, slip­py sur­faces, and con­stant glare from the low Sun to increase the dif­fi­cul­ty of scan­ning for cairns. I heard the voic­es of day hik­ers ahead before I saw them. We reached the main look­out just before 16:00. Ten or so peo­ple were scat­tered around, sur­prised to see Porthos appear from the wilder­ness. I gave myself ten min­utes for a snack, to enjoy the view, and to take a tri­pod pho­to of the two of us.

I lost my path entire­ly when leav­ing the look­out point and asked a cou­ple for direc­tions.
“Where’d you come from?” they asked.
“From about sev­en­ty kilo­me­tres the oppo­site way.”
They point­ed: north first, then bend south. Soon we entered the nar­row cor­ri­dor flanked by sheer cliffs—a fea­ture famil­iar to me from pic­tures. The descent in and out was sim­ple enough.

Then came the obsta­cle that stopped me cold: a mas­sive heap of fall­en boul­ders with deep dark gaps between them. I stood there, my brain crash­ing from incom­pre­hen­sion. Sure­ly this wasn’t the way down. The same cou­ple appeared beside us.
“You’re look­ing at it,” they said—and start­ed descend­ing care­ful­ly.

Fuck me.

Pho­tos don’t cap­ture the scale of this rock­fall. The rocks range in size from beach balls to com­pact cars, and the spaces between them could swal­low a per­son whole. I was more wor­ried for Porthos because one wrong step could be cat­a­stroph­ic. For a moment, I con­sid­ered climb­ing down first, leav­ing my pack at the base, and com­ing back for him, but that would con­sume pre­cious min­utes and leave him pan­ick­ing alone. Instead, in a first on this trail, I leashed him and we inched our way down. At each ledge I’d descend first, put down my poles, anchor myself, grab the han­dle of his back­pack, and low­er him care­ful­ly. Then we’d repeat. Again and again.

It took us ten hair-rais­ing min­utes to descend the rock­fall. There were two hours of day­light and an unknown dis­tance remain­ing.

The next sec­tion opened onto the longest quartzite dome of the day. For­tu­nate­ly, it was easy to fol­low thanks to cairns hav­ing bright blue posts, some even fit­ted with direc­tion­al blazes. What lux­u­ry! If only the rest of the trail were this con­sid­er­ate.

Soon we entered sparse for­est where the path was wide and obvi­ous. It curved around Kakakise Lake and crossed a cres­cent bridge with an awk­ward slant. A few min­utes lat­er, a fork announced the split between The Crack Trail and the Sil­hou­ette Trail, com­plete with a bright blue sign: 6.2 kilo­me­tres to go. Right about then, my satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tor chimed with a mes­sage from Lily con­firm­ing the remain­der was most­ly for­est. A wel­come relief.

No dil­ly­dal­ly­ing. We pushed west at our fastest safe pace. The sun had maybe an hour left, though it would dis­ap­pear behind the hills much soon­er. I snapped my final pho­to about thir­ty min­utes past the sign, a last glimpse of sun­light. Sev­er­al bog­gy stretch­es fol­lowed, their unsteady foot­bridges more hin­drance than help, but noth­ing com­pared to what had come before.

By ear­ly twi­light we reached the beaver dam cross­ing at Wag­on Road Lake. The camp­sites on both sides, H51 and H52, were emp­ty. We fin­ished our last snack bars in silence. Porthos rest­ed in the grass while I geared up for night­fall with two head­lamps. The weak­er Pet­zl around my neck to light the ground imme­di­ate­ly ahead of my feet, and the stronger Fenix on my head for range and spot­ting mark­ers.

Dark­ness fell quick­ly after the dam. Porthos stayed close behind instead of lead­ing. The first cou­ple of kilo­me­tres were mer­ci­ful­ly easy—flat, smooth, and mind­less. I was in glee when a sign announced 600 metres to the trail­head. But that excite­ment was pre­ma­ture. I know what 600 metres feels like. This wasn’t it. It was the longest 600 metres of my life.

Halfway through, the trail threw one last curve ball at us. There were a hand­ful of steep ascents and descents, and short rocky tra­vers­es. I kept hav­ing to remind myself this wasn’t some celes­tial pun­ish­ment for my ini­tial arro­gance, just mind­less geol­o­gy.

From the final ridge, I smelled woodsmoke and saw camp­fire flick­ers below. This last descent was har­row­ing: dark­ness, fatigue, and high ledges that required low­er Porthos with my tired arm. I lost bal­ance once and land­ed hard on a sharp rock, my left glute tak­ing the full impact. It hurt deep but wasn’t seri­ous. Had I fall­en a few inch­es fur­ther left, I would’ve land­ed square­ly on my tail­bone. The poten­tial of that injury made me clench.

And then, sud­den­ly, we were on a road. We’d reached the George Lake Camp­ground. It’s fun­ny how I didn’t remem­ber it being so sprawl­ing. Every trail guide rec­om­mends park­ing your car at the exit so you can fin­ish and dri­ve off imme­di­ate­ly. Our late start on day one had ruined that plan. Now, exhaust­ed, we trudged anoth­er 1.4 kilo­me­tres through the camp­ground. Porthos lagged heav­i­ly; he’d had enough, and so did I.

My feet were blis­tered, toe­nails bruised, and the skin was raw where the back­pack straps rubbed against my clav­i­cles and pelvis.

The car was a com­fort­ing sight. I dropped the pack in the hatch, changed shoes, and fed and watered Porthos before set­tling him into his nest in the back seat. I called Lily and told her we sur­vived.

Accord­ing to my watch, Porthos and I cov­ered 27.8 kilo­me­tres from H37 to the car at the west­ern trail­head. Sub­tract­ing our walk of shame through the camp­ground makes the dis­tance between H37 and the clock­wise exit 26.5 kilo­me­tres. Lily’s research was cor­rect.

Curi­ous­ly, though I’d cursed the trail from day one, the moment I reached the car, I start­ed think­ing about every­thing I’d change for next time.

The dri­ve home was unevent­ful. I devel­oped a dull ache around my kneecap while dri­ving along the two-lane road from Kil­lar­ney to High­way 400. Lat­er, I stopped to refu­el at an Indige­nous gas sta­tion where I limped into the store for an ener­gy drink. Quite aware of my smell, I made it quick. The knee pain sub­sided before Par­ry Sound, where I treat­ed myself with a Harvey’s veg­gie burg­er with not one, but two (!) pat­ties and large fries. Caloric.

I pulled into the dri­ve­way behind our house just after mid­night. Porthos and I both limped out of the car.

When Lily saw me shirt­less lat­er that night, she said I looked like I’d been beat­en up.

She was cor­rect. The La Cloche Sil­hou­ette Trail licked me good.