camping at Wells Grey

We spent the long weekend camping with Sam and Annemarie. We live in opposite corners of British Columbia, so we decided to drive to the middle and camp at Wells Grey Provincial Park.

It was fun and relaxing and we got to use our tent outdoors for the first time! (You may recall that we had already set it up in our living room and slept in it for two nights.) This is the summer of buying camping gear, so we also broke in a new tarp, camp chairs, camp pots/pans, and a new air mattress for Aaron. It was tres exciting. Maybe next time we'll buy our own cooler. And remember to bring dish soap.

We spent Sunday driving around the park and looking at various natural and historical sights. There was a carbonated mineral spring that was bubbly and covered in bright orange goo. When you threw rocks in, the goo closed up immediately over top and you couldn't tell that anything had changed. There weren't even surface ripples. It was as if the rock had ceased to exist the moment it touched the goo!

The other pleasant surprise was Helmcken Falls. I figured we were just going to go see a bunch of mediocre-but-cool waterfalls in the park, but Helcken Falls are the real deal! They are three times as tall as Niagara, although they are of course much much narrower. But there is a still quite a significant amount of water pouring over (they are not wispy), and there is a cool hollowed-out part in the cliff that has mainly been eroded by winter ice from the mist. Here is a picture that I found online, although I don't think it really does the falls justice, they're WAY bigger than that!