Trip Plan: Killarney (May 2022)

Happy Friday! Earlier this week I locked in sites for my planned backcountry adventure in Killarney Provincial Park in May (Victoria Day long weekend) and am pretty excited about it! My brother will be joining me so I’m looking forward to sharing the experience with him.

It was pretty tough booking sites for this – 90% of sites were already booked for that weekend when I logged on and I had to extend the trip to six days (was initially planning five) due to site availability. The sixth day will probably be a blessing in disguise though.

Here’s our itinerary, along with rough FATMAP route maps and our trip by the numbers:

Day 1: Access Point to H5
Day 2: H5 to H20
Day 3: H20 to H23
Day 4: H23 to H38
Day 5: H38 to H49
Day 6: H49 to Access Point

Day	Travel (km)	Ascent (m)	Descent (m)
1	6.92	171	167
2	17.38	375	362
3	5.31	183	49
4	18.83	721	747
5	9.33	303	288
6	12.87	263	402
TOTAL	70.65	2016	2016

After booking I actually really like this route for a few reasons:

1. It’s my brother’s first multi night backpacking trip, so I want to make it a bit more manageable for him (though this will definitely be a tough first one regardless, haha). It’ll also be my longest, previous was probably Ishpatina but that was mostly canoeing which is arguably easier than hiking.
2. A nice mix of long and short days. I’ve ran into fatigue and soreness problems when I hammer out back to back 20 km days (see: Algonquin Western Uplands), but the website conveniently forced me to book shorter days immediately after long days (notably the very short Day 3) to allow for recovery.
3. Very short first day means we don’t need to rush right off the bat and hammer out a long day after driving up. The last day is a bit longer but it’s not as long as I’ve done in the past, so we should be able to finish by early afternoon and take time driving home.

This will also be a great test of packing skills – definitely cannot afford to bring anything we don’t need. I’ll also be able to fully utilize my BearVault. When I bought it I wasn’t initially enamored by the fact it was massive (MEC only had the large size in stock and I REALLY needed it as I had a trip that weekend) – I usually stuff my stove and random items like socks in it while hiking to save space in my pack. For this trip, with two people and roughly five days on the trail (four full days, two half days, so ~30 meals worth), it will almost certainly be entirely filled with food.

Hopefully the weather holds up, but if not, will be ready for the added challenge! 💪 🤞

If anyone has done this trail and wants to offer advice, let me know!