Day 7: Wells Gray Provincial Park
September 15, 2012
Our guest-house in Clearwater, BC
I’ll try to be short today, since Katrin is preparing dinner and I don’t want to miss it. After a good nights sleep, we got up early and managed to leave earlier than usual. We got breakfast at a nearby bakery (“Flour Meadow Bakery”, the owner was from “Sachsen” and proudly displayed it in his restaurant), which were probably the best bagels with cream-cheese we’ve had so far. Then we headed into Wells Gray Provincial Park to look at a number of waterfalls. The park was nice, but not that spectacular. We saw a couple of deer on the main road, and the usual amount of chipmunks, but that’s about it. The waterfalls were nice (especially Helmcken Falls), but it did require some driving in the park to get from one to another. At some points the road was pure gravel, up the hill, with a lots of potholes deep enough to exceed our measly ground clearance.
View from the Green Mountain observation tower
After the park we drove on towards Valemount, BC, where we had booked a lodge for the night as our last stop before Jasper. The drive was basically just Clearwater (where we had stayed), Blue River (two gas-stations and a general store) and then Valemount. The problem was that these three villages are strung along the Route 5 over a distance of 200km, with pretty much nothing in between. No Tim Horton’s, no gas station, just the river, train tracks and telephone masts.
Helmcken Falls
In Valemount we had booked one night over the Internet and were just amazed at the room we got. We have the complete basement level of this lovely home (Mountain Driftwood Lodge) to ourselves, including a bathroom, washing machine, kitchen, living room, etc. The couple who owns the house is just lovely, and right now they are busy making and tasting their own wine, among other things.
So, not many photos (I was driving all day after all), and dinner is ready in a minute, I’ll leave you guys with that. Hope I can write from Jasper tomorrow, in another time-zone by the way ;)
