Reservations are made

Next up on the training schedule is La Cloche Silhouette. A majestic 79 km loop through Killarney Provincial Park. The route is considered difficult and looking at the topo map I believe it. some places it looks like you are walking up cliff faces! Another stretch looks to be 20kms of constant up and down.

The loop features beautifully rugged white quartzite cliffs that are older than dirt! Dirt being the stuff that used to sit on top of the quartzite when they were mountains taller than the Rockies. So now you know why there is so much dirt. The name of the trail comes from the painting by Franklin Carmichael, a group of seven artist. Here is the painting:

I would say one of the better efforts from the group of seven but then I'm not a very good Canadian - I don't care for the music of Rush, hockey is dead to me (murdered by Garry Bettman) and I'm not a fan of the group of seven. At least I've still got a love of beer (mostly UK beers) and that special skill where I can always find something to whine about and blame on someone else even when things are going awesomely well. And let's face it, that last one is what really defines Canadian.

I will be doing this hike in mid-May while things are still cool and damp. Considering my planned February 15th start date for the AT I'm going to want to test all the gear in cool and wet weather. The plan is to pack for Killarney as if I was starting out on the AT and at the end of the week re-evaluate all my choices.

It will also function as an evaluation of my fitness. The pace of the Killarney hike will average 16kms per day which is the suggested starting pace for the AT. Based on how difficult I find Killarney I will know how hard I will have to work all summer. (Here's hoping it's beer and nachos on the patio hard!)

A 16km per day pace would be about 219 days of walking to complete the AT. Considering one of the things I learned on the cross Canada bike trip is that a weekly rest day is invaluable that ramps it up to a 256 day trip. Or about 8.5 months. Now where did I put that 11 tons of food...