Helmcken Falls, Wells Gray
Helmcken Falls, Wells Gray
Dawson Falls, Wells Gray
Soap berries, Dawson Falls, Wells Gray
Dawson Falls, Wells Gray
Corinne & Tony, Dawson Falls, Wells Gray
Water lilies on Lake at Painted Turtle restaurant, Clearwater
Painted turtle, Painted Turtle restaurant, Clearwater
It was Susie’s birthday back in Australia so first and foremost, we sent messages home wishing her greetings and best wishes from the Rockies.
The morning looked perfect for our visit to the Wells Gray Provincial Park so we got under way as soon as possible after breakfast and drove northwards following the Clearwater River Valley toward the turn-off to Helmcken Falls.
The falls are at the end of a non-descript road amongst a dense forest of spruce trees.
Had we been more attentive the roar of distant waters may have given us a clue as to the scene that was about to greet us.
The Helmcken is a spectacular waterfall on the Murtle River of height 141 m and 23 m wide plunging into a ravine of similar dimensions. This is about three times higher than the Niagara Falls but nothing like as wide. Nonetheless it is awesome in its grandeur. The Murtle River drops over the western escarpment of the plateau and the gigantic canyon below is that carved by millennia of water flow over lava fields laid down 20,000 years ago.
The waterfall is so large that it creates its own mini-climate in the region and the clouds formed can obscure the unbelievably immense cascade of water and the huge cave in behind the waterfall formed by eroding water over countless thousands of years.
The falls were discovered in 1913 by surveyor Robert Lee and named after Dr. John Sebastian Helmcken a physician with the Hudson’s Bay Company who helped bring British Columbia into Canadian Confederation in 1871.
Our next stop was at the nearby Dawson Falls which are another of the many waterfalls in this area that can be reached by car. Although smaller in height the falls are over 100 m wide and have a beautifully scenic backdrop of upstream cascades and dense birch and spruce forest.
We then drove back to Clearwater and had a mid morning coffee break at the Painted Turtle café situated on the picturesque Dutch Lake. The sunny morning conditions with not a breath of wind made the location idyllic. We sat outside on a balcony and looked across the expansive lake whose border was a mass of pink and white water lilies with quite a few painted turtles sitting on logs at the water’s edge.
The rest of the day involved the drive from Clearwater through to Jasper. The road was excellent and the mountain scenery was beyond expectation with snow caped peaks and vast rock walls seemingly making the road impassable. However the road weaved its way through ravines and canyons, past narrow blue lakes and impenetrable forest and slowly but surely we headed north and then east.
Approaching Jasper we crossed over from British Columbia and into Alberta where we encountered a major traffic jam which was due to works on a bridge making this major highway just one lane. The bottleneck thus formed caused a delay of nearly an hour but we still arrived in Jasper in time to relax before heading out to a local Italian restaurant for some pasta and wine.
We have two nights in our Jasper accommodation (at Lobstick Lodge) and tomorrow we plan to spend a day in this area which although famous as a winter ski location is equally popular as a summer hiking and boating region.