Wells Gray Provincial Park

Wells Gray covers a corner of the Cariboo Mountains where lava flows met glaciers, leaving a landscape of volcanic cones, lava beds and rivers that drop off basalt lips, and the result is a park with dozens of named waterfalls. Helmcken is the one everyone comes for, a single plunge of about a hundred and forty metres into a bowl, roughly two and a half times the height of Niagara, and in a hard winter the spray builds a cone of ice at its base tall enough to climb. Dawson Falls is wider than it is tall, Spahats drops through a slot in a canyon wall, and beyond the road the park runs on into a wilderness of long lakes reached by canoe.

History

Before Europeans came, the area was a valued hunting ground of the Secwepemc, Tsilhqot'in and Canim Lake peoples. The Overlanders, rafting down the North Thompson to the Cariboo goldfields in 1862, named the Clearwater River for its clear water, a name Lord Milton and Dr. Cheadle fixed in print in 1865; railway survey parties explored the area from 1873, the surveyor Robert Lee found Helmcken Falls in 1913 and asked to name it after Premier McBride, who chose instead to honour the Hudson's Bay Company physician John Sebastian Helmcken, and the first homesteaders, John Ray and Michael Majerus, arrived in 1911 and 1912 (Wikipedia, Wells Gray Provincial Park).

Highlights

• Helmcken Falls - a hundred and forty metre plunge into a rock bowl.
• The winter ice cone - a spray-built cone at the base in cold years.
• Dawson and Spahats Falls - a wide curtain and a slot canyon drop.
• Clearwater and Azure Lakes - the long lakes for canoe trips beyond the road.

When to go

June to September for the road, trails and canoe routes, with the falls at their fullest in June from snowmelt. The Helmcken ice cone forms in midwinter and needs a cold year and a snow-cleared road to see. Autumn is quiet with good colour.

What to expect

The corridor road is long and the park's interior is genuinely remote, so most visitors see three roadside waterfalls and leave. Viewing platforms at Helmcken are fenced but people climb past them. Bears are common. Facilities are minimal and the nearest supplies are in Clearwater.

Nearby

Clearwater is the gateway town; Jasper is about four hours northeast.

Key facts