I’ve heard about the beautiful Killarney Provincial Park for years, so I decided to plan a short, 4 day trip to Killarney.
Day 1: Josée and I drove up on clear, sunny day. We loaded up the canoe and started out on Bell Lake. We had picked up some Subway on the drive there and decided to eat it on an awesome little island 2.4 miles in.
Island on Bell Lake.
Bell lake is a beautiful lake with a bunch of small sandy beaches. Once it narrows, it becomes quite picturesque. The last 0.5 miles before the portage to Balsam lake is very shallow, so watch out if you’ve got a heavy canoe. The portage from Bell Lake to Balsam Lake is only 40 meters, so don’t bother spending time making sure your pack is perfect. Balsam Lake is also very beautiful. We found this wicked campsite on a peninsula (Site 113). The campsite has a lot of room for tents, great fishing, and a great swimming rock. For dinner, we had steak, potatoes and carrots – a day 1 tradition of mine.
Campsite 113.
Day 2: Josée caught a small pike then we portaged to David Lake. The 620 meter portage to David lake is mildly steep, so be prepared. At the end of the portage, there is a beautiful view of David lake and the Silver Peak Range in the distance.
View from the portage from Balsam Lake to David Lake.
David lake is absolutely massive. Make sure you paddle through David lake on a clear day because the wind can definitely make for an unpleasant trip. There are 15 great campsites to pick from. We picked Site 104 because it was close to the Silver Peak hike entrance.
Sunset from Site 104 on David Lake.
Day 3: We woke up fairly early to hike up to the top of Silver Peak. It’s a beautiful hike consisting of very gradual inclines, nothing to steep, but constant. Throughout the more exposed sections, there are massive cairns that guide the way. The views from the top are spectacular.
View from the top of Silver Peak (539 m).
Day 4: When we woke up, it looked like it may be a rainy day, so we decided to get our butts in gear and leave for our site on Bell Lake. The first portage from David Lake to David Creek had a nice sandy beech landing. Just after the portage, there was a nice little waterfall that we watched for a few minutes. We saw a buck while we were paddling along David Creek.
Buck on David Creek.
The portage to Bell lake was pretty flat. On Bell lake, we saw a ton of paddlers about to hike up to Silver Peak, a few fisherman and a couple fawns. We got to the closest campsite to our car on Bell Lake (Site 83). We had a ton of time and the weather was clearing up, so we decided to hike “The Crack”.
The parking is difficult to find, it is marked by two red poles. The hike is really easy at the start until about 2.8 km in – then it gets pretty steep for the last kilometer or so. The last little bit is a Class 1 scramble, so bring appropriate shoes.
View from the top of the “The Crack”
Day 5: In the morning, we heard something running around frantically for a while, so we peaked our heads out to a fox running around.
We were only a couple hundred meters paddle from our car so we took our time in the morning. We left around 10 AM, packed up all our stuff in the car then headed home.
Campsite 83
Click on the 
icon to make the Google Map full screen, to see all the photos I took and where they were taken. Click on the 
symbol to see all the photos. There are 12 in total. I colour coded each day. Blue is day 1, yellow is day 2, purple is day 3, green is day 4, and brown is “The Crack”.
Stats:
Day 1: 9.9 km paddle, 100 meter portaging (2 trips)
Day 2: 7.06 km paddle, 1840 meter portaging (2 trips)
Day 3: 200 meter paddle, 12 km hike
Day 4: 8 km paddle, 1.3 km portaging (2 trips of 210 meter) (1 trip of 700 meter) 7.1 km hike up the crack
Ontario Adventurer 