THE EDIT #22 / Our Wells Gray Trip

Wells Gray Provincial Park is a large wilderness park located in east-central British Columbia. It consists of over 5,000 kilometres of nature, including most of the Cariboo Mountains. We got to explore this beautiful park last weekend and I have had so many questions from some of you who are also interested in taking a trip there.

1/WHERE WE STAYED

At the very end of the park, there are two RV parks — Falls Creek and Clearwater Lake. I’m not sure why there are two separate parks, because they are very similar and just separated by a small walking bridge.

We stayed on the Falls Creek side as that was the only open space we could get booking just a few weeks prior. All the sites were beautiful, surrounded by trees and wildlife, but also very private.

Anytime we are at a campsite we think we might return to, I walk around noting my favorite sites for future bookings. Note: there are no bad sites here, I would be happy as a clam in any of them, but I’ve listed ones below that really stuck out to me.

Falls Creek: 43, 50, 71
Clearwater Lake: 7, 15, 17

2/GOING HIKING

In my opinion, hiking is the real draw to the Wells Gray area. Hiking to a waterfall has to be one of my favorite things to do — and there are endless opportunities to that here!

We had the kids with us, so we did a few of the smaller hikes (an hour or shorter), but really wanted to take advantage of being in the area, so we challenged the kids (and our patience!) and did the Moul Falls hike. It’s just under 6km round trip, but oh so worth it! You hike to a beautiful 35m (115ft) high waterfall, which you can take in from the top or venture down the steep hill and get to the base. The girls had no problem, but I did have to carry Lincoln down this part.

We had packed a lunch and ate at the bottom of the falls before Carey and Liv ventured up in behind the falls. This is the only waterfall in the park you can walk behind, so it was quite an adventure! The kids were dragging a bit on the hike back and little Lincoln got carried quite a bit, but all in all they crushed this hike!

3/SIGHTSEEING

Due to having the kids with us, we were limited when it came to hiking, but there were plenty of beautiful sites we could drive (pretty much) up to.

One of these sites was Helmcken Falls, which is the park’s main tourist draw. This waterfall is Canada’s fourth highest, with a vertical drop of 141m (463ft).

There were also plenty of pull offs along the way where we could fish or let the kids have a swim.

4/WHITE WATER RAFTING

From what I have read, this is quite the place to go white water rafting with some of the rapids getting up to class 6!

We spent the weekend with Cris Adaptive while we were in Wells Gray and did a day rafting trip with them.

We used one of the guide company’s out of Clearwater and stuck to a tamer area of the river, but I think it’s definitely something to look in to while you are there! 

5/DO YOUR RESEARCH

Before our trip, I found “Exploring Wells Gray Park”, which you may come across at a used book store. I was so happy I had this once we arrived, as there was no cell service or wifi. So, I would definitely recommend having a book or printing off all of the information you might want.

This particular book was a bit dated, but worked just fine for us. However, there a ton of updated options that gives you more information on the area.