My family and I were in Well Gray PP from Monday July 27th to Saturday Aug 1st. We finished the last 2 days of this trip in Jasper Nationa Park.
When we arrived in the town of Clearwater the temp was 37 degrees celcius (96 F). Thank goodness when we go to our campsite a little ways up the mountain the temperature was only 30 degrees (85F). For the entire time we were in WG, the temp ranged from 30 - 40 (85 - 104). And the air was quite thick due to the heavy vegetation everywhere. The big draw to WG is the abundance of waterfalls. Dawson Falls was the first set of falls we got to see. It is on the clearwater river and drops approx 20 feet. It was quite fantastic and our family was pretty pumped about it. My son is 11 and my daughter is 7 so they loved seeing the falls. The next set we saw were Helmcken Falls. OMG. 450 feet. It was incredible. I've been very fortunate to witness some pretty amazing places since my wife and I have been together but this was something else. The falls seem to appear out of nowhere and the sound and sight of the water crashing against itself is amazing. Our campsite was quite nice, we were lucky enough to have a spot with lots of trees to provide shade and there were lots of the grassy areas for the kids to run around. The place we stayed was the Heclmken Falls Lodge (
Accommodations in Wells Gray Park, Clearwater BC, Canada). It was very clean, nice showers, very helpful people and if you didn't feel like cooking there is a very nice restaurant in the lodge. They also have horseback riding on site and if you feel very brave, about 1/2 mile down the road you can cool off in the Hemp river. If you are in Clearwater town, Dutch Lake provides a nice place to cool off and relax after hiking. I wish we would have had more opportunities to do some more hikes but the mosquitos were awful. And the temp was so warm any repellent you put on would soon be sweated off. Another campsite close to us but without any hookups was Pyramid Campground. Great spot, nice sites, great well water. Unfortunately there was a fire ban in place so we couldn't even have a fire. All in all, the trip to Wells Gray was very enjoyable and I highly recommend anyone to take an extra day or two, if you are through that area, to enjoy the sites Well Gray has to offer.
In Jasper we stayed at Wapiti campground and were lucky to be about 60 feet from the Athabasca river so it was nice listening to the sounds of the river whether sitting by the fire or falling asleep at night. We were fortunate to see one bear grazing on berries and flowers on the side of the hiway and there were quite a few elk in the campground. Jasper is beautiful and I'm glad that it is only 4 hours from home. More trips in the future. Thanks for reading and enjoy the pics.
Tim
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