A Return to Silent Lake

Despite the bug issues in the summer months, there's a lot I liked about Silent Lake provincial park. The big lookout trail is not too busy compared to places like Algonquin to the north. The scenery is very similar with a good mix of rocks, pine and hardwoods changing colour in the fall and the trail follows the edge of Silent lake for most of the northeastern side of the lake. There are many nice little pullouts when you can stop for a rest by the side of the lake and have a bite to eat or make a nice photograph of the changing leaves.

I started the trail at the day use area and quickly came upon a couple of small scenes with leaf fall on a small creek flowing out of Silent lake and the surrounding rocks. There was a nice beam of light breaking through the canopy and illuminating the scene with the rocks which created a nice natural vignette effect.

As I made may way along the trail, I stopped at a small rocky outcrop just across from an island in the middle of the lake. The shape of the island roughly mimics the hill on the far side of the water, filled with trees at pear colour.

As I continued along the trail, I encountered several of these small rocky outcroppings which allowed for a variety of images of the trees along the shoreline.

I encountered this scene fairly early on in my hike, but the trees were backlit in the morning sun, so I passed it by, planning to return towards the end of the day in better light. I had already made a photograph here on my last trip to the park, but I was hoping to do better with the foliage and warmer light. It would have been difficult to complete the 14km trail and make it back here, so I turned back at the 7km marker and did the trail in reverse on the way back to the car. Both the image above and below were taken on the return trip. When I arrived back at the scene below, some clouds were starting to move in towards the southwest and I had to wait a bit for a break in the cover, but despite the wait and being exhausted from the hike, I think the final result turned out well.