Another morning started at first light, on the road for our next destination: Wells Gray Provincial Park. We hoped to finish off the remaining 2.5 hours of driving and maybe make an afternoon rafting trip down the Clearwater River. We made one morning stop at Rearguard Falls, an endpoint for salmon migration. We didn't see any though, evidently missing the spectacular event by just a few days.
We managed to finally find a gas station, but it was crazy expensive. We got just enough to make it to Clearwater. We rolled into Clearwater late in the morning, getting gas and then finding a rafting company right away with room on an afternoon trip. After some issues again with our debit card, we finally were able to pay with our credit card, although with a bit of currency conversion fees. We had time before the trip to go find a campsite inside Wells Gray Provincial Park at Pyramid Campground, and even did some quick exploring of the Mush Bowl and Spahats Creek Falls.
The afternoon was spent on the water thanks to the awesome guides at Interior Whitewater. We took a bumpy bus ride down a muddy dirt road to reach the put-in. We had two rafts full of people from all over the world. We were the only Americans. Our raft was piloted by a guide from New Zealand. Our rafting companions were four buddies from the Netherlands and an older couple from Australia. We all quickly became friends. One of the Dutch guys talked to us a lot, asking us about our lives in the U.S. He was an inspector of imports, mainly those coming in from South America. I asked if he ever found weird spiders or other animals, but he said, "No, just cocaine. Every day cocaine." Ok...
The Clearwater River passes through Wells Gray Provincial Park and features high water volume crashing between the hills of the park. It is Class III throughout, with one section that is Class IV where rafts are not allowed to go after some deaths in the past. We hopped out and toted the rafts along a trail for about 0.25 miles to bypass that. We had a great time. It was cold, but the scenery was awesome and it was a challenging river. We really had to work, maybe more so than any of my trips down the Ocoee River in Tennessee. We saw several eagles near the end of our run down the river. It was worth every penny and we are happy to have made some new friends.
I laid outside on the picnic table after dark that night, looking at the stars under an ultra-clear sky. The sky is so dark and clear here when it's not raining. Supposedly, there are times you can see the Northern Lights from Jasper, but it was cloudy every night we camped near there so we missed out on any chance to see them. I stayed out as long as I could stand the cold, just enjoying the twinkles above and howls of nearby coyotes.
We only had one day to really explore Wells Gray. The park is large and most of it is very remote in the Cariboo Mountains. You need 4WD to get into many areas. Some are remote backpacking only. There is good road access to other areas, but it is a really long drive around the park to get there from Clearwater. We stuck with the main portion of the park. This place is FULL of waterfalls. The geography causes most of this. The center of the park is a massive plateau formed from a volcanic eruption. The edges of the volcanic rock have been eroded by rivers, giving the plataeu steep sides. The water that falls on top of the plateau, and comes from melting glaciers each summer, gathers into streams and then launches off the steep sides toward the rivers below. There are 39 named waterfalls within the park, with many more without a name occuring on the streams as they tumble down the mountainsides. We hoped to get to each of the waterfalls we had access to in this area of the park.
We started off driving north to the end of Clearwater Valley Rd. The road turns to gravel not too far beyond where we camped. After making the drive across the gravels early in the morning, we put boots on the trail for our first waterfall destination. It was very, very foggy. Our plan was to hike up to an overlook above Osprey Falls, but we decided to stay lower below the fog until it had time to clear. We saw Sticta Falls, then passed through a mossy forest full of mushrooms on the Dragon's Tongue Loop. The fog remained when we returned and we still couldn't see atop the Osprey Falls overlook. At least you could see Osprey from the bank of the Clearwater River. There are many tall waterfalls here, but Osprey is not in that category at all. It is only 15 feet tall at its highest point. But what it lacks in height it more than makes up for in width, extending 1200 feet all the way across the Clearwater River at the edge of Clearwater Lake. We also saw Falls Creek in this same area, which ends with a small waterfall into the river.
On the drive back through the gravel portion of the road, we saw some of the craziest mushrooms I have ever seen. They were over a foot tall and looked like they were melting. They were growing along the edge of the road in the gravel.
Helmcken Falls was next on the list. This is the most famous waterfall in the park. The discovery of this waterfall is what prompted people to find a way to make this area a park. Helmcken Falls is nothing short of breathtaking. Large amounts of water tumble over the edge of a cliff into a rounded canyon, falling 462 feet to the bottom. Helmcken is also 75 feet wide. I had seen pictures of this one long before we considered ever coming to any part of Canada. You may have seen pictures too. It makes quite a few Top 10 lists of things to see in Canada. It is even more spectacular in winter when the mist freezes in a cone shape around the falling water.
We came back to the campground to pack up our tent and hit up Dawson Falls. You can view this waterfall from both the north and south sides of the Murtle River. The trailhead by Pyramid Campground takes you to the north side of the falls. We did that hike, then drove to the opposite side to hike to the south viewpoint. Both were pretty great.
Another large waterfall followed a short 1.75-mile hike. Grouse Creek drops 115 feet at Moul Falls. This one has high water volume and fills the air with roar. It was a pretty easy hike to the top of Moul Falls, then gets steep and wet from the mist of the falls as you descend to the bottom. There is a small trail that goes behind the falls. I did that trail and it was unbelievable. The sound was deafening and I was instantly soaked by the spray. It was like walking through a car wash. The power of the water was unbelievable. You also get a bit of size perspective in the photos where I am behind the falls.
Wells Gray is unbelievable! If you ever have the chance to go, do it! If you like waterfalls, put it down on your bucket list. It really is a spectacular place, very near the top of my list of favorite parks we have visited.
After one last stop at Third Canyon Falls, we hit the road and left Wells Gray behind. The drive took us through Kamloops as we made our way south and then east toward Mt. Revelstoke. It was cool to pass by some of the areas where legendary freeride mountain bike videos have been filmed. Kamloops has quite the mountain bike history thanks to riders like Wade Simmons, Brett Tippie and Richie Schley, along with producer Bjorn Enga and videographer Christian Begin who brought freeride to the world in the original Kranked video back in 1997. Kamloops is considered the birthplace of freeride by many. The OGs did a lot of scree surfing on steep slopes back in those days.
We saw bighorn sheep in Kamloops and enjoyed plenty of lake views along Shuswap Lake. The drive took longer than expected and we found ourselves in Revelstoke well after dark with no camping available in Mount Revelstoke National Park. We looked for other options for a couple of minutes while using wifi at a Starbucks, but they closed right after we arrived and shut the wifi off on us. It was raining so searching around in the dark in some strange town proved difficult. We didn't find anything and ended up spending the night in the back of the van at a rest area we had seen just before we reached town. Not ideal, but it worked. More exploring to come!
