Killarney Provincial Park
Overview and Arrival - Saturday, October 4
This trip report documents my first ever visit to Killarney Provincial Park in Central Ontario. I and a group of five friends explored two of the park's highlights: a scramble up the trail known as The Crack, and a climb to the park's highest point: Silver Peak.
Killarney Locator Map
Killarney is in a fairly remote location, despite not being in the far north of the province. It sits on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay in Lake Superior, south of the city of Sudbury. There is only one way to get in and out of the park: highway 637 - a long 67-kilometre dead-end route that ends on the shore of Georgian Bay. There are no communities of any significance for many kilometres in all directions.
I'd never been to Killarney before. That is fairly notable, since I've been living in Eastern Ontario for many decades now. The main reason for my negligence? Frankly, I was more drawn to elevation than anything else, and that meant that the nearby Adirondacks - much more mountainous than anything in Ontario - drew me away.
Over the last several years, though, I've been making more of an effort to explore the outdoor beauty in my home province of Ontario: outings along the shores of the Great Lakes; visits to Algonquin Park; local outings to places like Calabogie Peaks; Charleston Lake, Frontenac Provincial Park. And now, my attention had finally turned to Killarney, a park that - upon closer examination - has some exceptional attributes. Remoteness, yes; Untrammelled wilderness, yes; Innumerable lakes and a backcountry canoeing mecca; yes; but also... it had mountains. Low mountains, yes, but mountains nevertheless. In a province so vast and mostly devoid of true peaks, this was a defining feature for me. And with some studying, I realized that the geology of these peaks was quite rare: a distinctive V-shaped arrangement of two long ranges of low peaks, capped almost entirely of pure, white ortho-quartzite metamorphic rock. Once towering rocky-mountain-height peaks, these billion+ year-old rocks were now worn down to smoothed out, low-lying peaks. Despite the low altitude, they were mysterious, interesting, and likely provided beautiful views - especially from the two destinations we had planned: Silver Peak, the highest point in the park, and The Crack, a rugged and fractured section of ridgeline with deep clefts and clifftop lookouts.
Highway 69
The six of us who came together to sample Killarney on this two-day / two-hike visit each travelled a different route to get to the park. The shortest way (from Ottawa) is via North Bay and Sudbury, but for me this was a route of which I had grown weary. And being an afficionado of interesting and twisty backways, I chose a more complex and slower route, passing through the lands of Algonquin Provincial Park and the communities of Huntsville and Parry Sound before finally heading up highway 69 and then down the dead-end highway 637 route into the Killarney Area.
Highway 637
As we drove along the final stretch of highway towards the park, Rowan took a nice aerial shot of us driving down the lonely highway through the endless, autumn-tinged wilderness.
courtesy RInnes
An Unspoiled Landscape
We had reserved ourselves a campsite for the night at the George Lake Campground. This campground is the only front-country campground in the park; all other campsites are individual backpacking or canoe-accessible sites, generally located on the various lakes of the park. The campground's administrative building also doubles as the park's headquarters. It is here you obtain your various permits, have discussions with rangers, and obtain park paraphernalia.
George Lake Entrance
We quickly set up our camp and then chose to head back out of the campground, but we didn't feel like cooking up a camp meal. Instead, we hopped in the car and headed west towards the terminus of highway 637 at Georgian Bay, where the 400-person strong town of Killarney is located. We located a pub-style restaurant at the Sportsman's Inn and Marina.
Warm evening at the Sportsmans
It was a glorious warm, still, 20+ degree celcius evening, and we sat and ate our meal on the deck outside, watching as the nearly full moon began to rise in the eastern sky.
After dinner, it was back to the campground, where we built a small campfire and sat around chatting for an hour or two. The campground was pretty much full on this Saturday night, but noise levels were low and the vibe was chill. We walked down to the nearby shore of George Lake and got our first glimpse of the quartzite bedrock of the La Cloche range on the far side, glowing quite noticeably white in the strong moonlight.
