Early March we did 60km on skis and snowshoes across an incredibly beautiful landscape. There was supposed to be 4 of us and the morning of our departure Buck came down with the flu. It sucked that he had to bail but it’s better to become symptomatic before going out in the wilderness rather than while out there.

That left Kevin, Mitch and myself. We drove up to Espanola in the rain the night before our planned departure. It poured all day on the Wednesday and the forecast had the temps to be dropped below -12 Celsius in the morning. We hoped that this would lead to fast lake travel. 

We finally left the truck in Willisville just after 1030am, which is a bit later then we usually depart but wanted the cold temps to lock up the slush as best as it could. Which meant more time. Starting out we had some slush for the first few kms but after another hour it was froze enough to strap our skis on. With a brisk tail wind we cleared Frood Lake and hit the portage into Grace Lake quickly and were slowed by the crusty deep snow. Sometimes you post hole through and sometimes you don’t. It made for a fun yet frustrating game. Both Kev and I had 33in Northern Lite Tundra shoes on for the portages and bushwhacking sections. Mitch had a smaller pair of MSR mountaineering shoes which would not give him the same floatation in the waist deep crusty snow. 

Grace lake was beautiful. Then the portage into Nellie Lake which actually was skiable and made for some good bush travel on our Hoks. Still a bit of post holing but faster than the snowshoes. Once we hit Nellie Lake we were met with a strong tailwind that blew us all the way to east end where we made camp and would be our start up and over the range to Three Narrows Lake the next morning. 

We started day 2 with a nice 4km bush walk up and over the range to three narrows lake. We were off trail for this section but we mainly followed a saddle up and over that made navigating easy. There were some very cool landscape features in this section. Getting off trail and away from the beaten path so often has some beauty hidden surprises. After crossing the La Cloche trail we had a few cliffs to navigate and zig zag through to get down to the lake. We saw 1 wolf in the distance on the ski across the lake and only 1 section of open water that we had to scoot around through the bush. 

The portage over to Killarney was slow going up on our snowshoes but once we hit the high point put our skis on and had a blast skiing down to Killarney Lake. We found a recent wolf kill, which was a Buck that had recently shed its antlers. After the ski to Killarney Lake we went a few km east and found a spot to camp. This night we were treated to incredibly clear skies and snapped a few night shots. 

Day 3 we zig zagged creeks and lakes through Norway lake, Sandy, up and over the range where we crossed the La Cloche trail the 2nd time and down to Bunnyrabbit lake. The cute we bushwhacked up out of Amikogaming lake to Bunnyrabbit was nice and steep and had a ton of Grouse wandering around. After a brief snack on the ridge we dropped to Bunnyrabbit and form out the south end of the lake started the last major bushwhack section out the south end, down to a old logging road and then East to Ruth Roy, Johnnie and where we made camp on the east end of Johnnie lake where there was allot of good firewood.

Wolves howled a handful of times through the night. Some sessions were maybe 1-2km away while the 430am howl would be a couple hundred meters away, which we found out the next morning when we found fresh tracks passing by the drainage we were camped beside. The last day we only had a short ski out to our routes end and where we met the folks from Killarney Outfitters. They were gracious enough to pick us up at the highway and shuttle us the 2hr drive around the park and back to our vehicle. All in all it was a great trip!