We set out from George Lake on a pretty grey day. There were a fair amount of people at the George Lake campground, many of them getting ready for canoe trips of their own, everything from day trips to those circumnavigating the entire park. Despite the gloomy weather it was pretty exciting to be setting out, so we kept our spirits up. We passed several other canoeists on George Lake, and then a few more on the short but pretty portage to Freeland Lake, but after that we were on our own until we got to Carlyle Lake.
George is a beautiful lake, and a great introduction to the park. Large white quartzite cliffs meet pink granite in an epic display of geology. Freeland, atypical of Killarney, is teeming with life, marshy, and devoid of spectacular rock forms. It’s still a very pretty lake, and it lead us to our first challenge of the trip.
At the far end of Freeland is a creek that winds it’s way to Kakakise Lake. When the water is low this creek isn’t navigable, so there’s a 1700m portage to bypass it. It had been a pretty dry summer so I checked with park staff before we headed out and was assured that the creek was passable. I’d never travelled this way before, so I didn’t know what to expect, and I was a bit worried that perhaps we’d been led astray. It wasn’t particularly difficult, but it also didn’t seem like anyone had come this way in a while. If we were going the wrong way turning around and heading back would be a lot of work. The creek is littered with small beaver dams. We were travelling against the current, so each one meant a lift over where we were hauling the canoe uphill. None of them were very tall, except perhaps the last one we encountered. This led us into a pretty little marsh that wound past a large rock on the left. After that our last lift-over was where the bridge for the Silhouette Trail crosses the creek.
Paddling across Kakakise was a bit of a relief after winding through the creek. I’ve hiked past Kakakise a few times, but I’ve never paddled it. I must admit I’ve never been particularly enchanted by the lake, but I’ve only seen one end. It is nicer as you proceed east.
It took us a little while to find the 860m portage to Carlyle Lake. This was our only portage of any significance of the day, and was our heaviest portage of the trip since we hadn’t eaten any food yet. It’s a bit steep at the takeout, but after that it’s pretty flat. There’s a fairly extensive boardwalk along part of the portage where it must get muddy at times. It had started to spit lightly while we were on Kakakise, but I had a canoe hat to keep me dry before the rain got heavy. By the time we were paddling on Carlyle Lake the rain had slowed down again.
There’s a very interesting looking campsite on the tiny ridge that separates Carlyle and Terry Lakes. A waterfall runs through it as Terry empties into Carlyle. Unfortunately this site was occupied so we took the one directly across the bay. I didn’t want to press on too far into Carlyle since it’s an access lake and I knew we’d start to see cottages if we continued. We could hear the waterfall at the other campsite gurgling away all night long.
The rain was off and on so we set our tarp up over the fire pit. This gave us a place to sit while we ate, and then after dinner we had a small fire under the tarp. The previous tenants had left us plenty of firewood so we didn’t have to go looking in the dark.
It was at dinner that I had the first hint that we may have brought to much food. Alex hadn’t eaten his ration of GORP and Cliff Bars yet, so he had to eat two meals at once, and it was obviously difficult getting them both down. I was hoping that it was only because we’d had such a large breakfast that morning. We had almost fifty pounds of food, and what we didn’t eat we’d have to carry on the long difficult portages in the middle of the trip.