Wells Gray Provincial Park

On the Labour Day weekend, the adults had a little getaway to Clearwater, BC. We took Friday off and stayed at a nice little place right on Dutch Lake, aptly named Dutch Lake Resort and RV Park. We had a spot with a partial view of the lake and it was nice and relaxing.

Dutch Lake

Clearwater is the gateway to Wells Gray Provincial Park, also known as Canada’s Waterfalls Park with 39 named waterfalls. In fact Helmcken Falls is one of the most beautiful waterfall in Canada according to Reader’s Digest. After getting all set up, we went to see 3 of the waterfalls.. and I tried my darnedest to capture the falls with my old faithful ever so heavy (I so want a new camera) Nikon. When we went to Dawson Falls, the weather changed – suddenly!!! We were caught in a hail storm! Nothing really to shelter you except maybe stand under a tree.. By the time we got back to the truck our jeans were soaked right through! Good thing that was it for the day of exploration and we headed back to the 5th wheel to dry up.

Helmcken Falls is a 141 m (463 ft) waterfall on the Murtle River

Spahats Creek Falls, also called Spahats Falls, is a waterfall on Spahats Creek within Wells Gray Provincial Park of British Columbia, Canada. Common references place the falls at around 60 m (197 ft) tall, but taking into account the second tier, it is closer to 75–80 meters tall. Spahats is the First Nations term for bear and the stream was long known as Bear Creek.  Spahats Falls owes its formation to deposits of volcanic rock in the Wells Gray-Clearwater volcanic field. Starting about 300,000 years ago, numerous eruptions from Trophy Mountain poured into the Clearwater River Valley and filled it layer upon layer to a depth of over 300 m (980 ft).

Dawson Falls is one of seven waterfalls on the Murtle River in Wells Gray Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada. Dawson Falls was named in 1913 by land surveyor Robert Henry Lee after George Herbert Dawson, the Surveyor-General for British Columbia from 1912-1917

Saturday is the big day – whitewater rafting down the Clearwater River with a short hike to Moul Falls.

The interesting thing about Moul Falls is that you can walk behind and under it.. Ya, like who doesn’t want to try that? Best to try that with something hard to protect your noggin’

Moul Falls

Group picture

Walking under the falls

After the excitement of Moul Falls, we headed towards the next adventure – Rafting through a class IV rapid known as Sabre Tooth. Rapids are rated from Class I to VI and anything above V is considered too extreme here in North America… Anyways, so happened that Jeff and I ended up at the front of the raft and that’s where all the action is! I wasn’t visible in most of the pictures going through the rapids and any if you see me, chances are my hand is grabbing on the rope at the side of the raft hanging on to my dear life. And each time our guide said to paddle, I was usually paddling in the air because the front of the raft was above the water…

Raft is flexed!

There we are!

Another activity was cliff jumping.. I did not attempt that as I’ve already done it in Mexico… and that was quite scary. This somehow reminds me of the  lemmings video game…

The next day we explored the park by driving all the way down Clearwater Lake Road. We went to Bailey’s Chute to see salmon jump in the air above the rapids but there was none.. We hiked to the south rim of Helmcken Falls. The sign said it is a 3-hour round trip but we finished it in 2 hours. It was interesting seeing the falls from a different perspective, but you know, not really worth the effort and the risk of falling off the cliff. You’re better off seeing the falls from the viewing platform which is not even a 5 minute stroll from the parking lot.

On Monday, we made our way back home. Even though this was only a short get-away but we had a lot of fun and it was definitely very memorable.