Our second last day of the trip was a break day on O.S.A Lake. We watched a large flotilla of canoes paddle away at noon as the weekenders left. After that we had the entire lake to ourselves. It was nice not having to pack up and rush off immediately, but I was a bit restless and didn’t want to waste another opportunity for some exploring in Killarney, so we hiked up to the peak of the ridge behind our campsite.
There were two crater lakes high up behind us and I plotted a path towards the peak up the gulley carved by their runoff. The hill was pretty steep and we were mildly out of breath by the time we made it to an exposed slab of quartzite between the two lakes. Despite being directly adjacent they were surprisingly different in character. One lake was deep and surrounded by white cliffs, much like Topaz Lake. The other was shallow and marshy, filled with the corpses of dead trees. Both are very pretty.
We continued past the two lakes, following game trails and exposed ridges of rock until we reached the top of the hill. The view wasn’t nearly as good as the one we had two days before, but we could see O.S.A. Lake, Three Narrows Lake, and both Baie Fine and McGregor Bay. It was a pretty nice spot, particularly on a nice warm sunny day.
A few nights before it had been very cold, and I was worried that perhaps the warm weather was over for the season. But the last night of the trip was the warmest and I had to throw my sleeping bag off in the night. The temperature wasn’t the only reason I had a hard time sleeping. I guess I just don’t learn, but my sandals were on the ground beneath my hammock again, and the night critters were out again. At one point I heard some scrambling and then a quick thudding. I had visions of a weasel running off with one of my sandals so I leapt out of my hammock to chase it down. At first I couldn’t find them, but then I realized that they were still under the hammock. They had been dragged, just not very far.
