Special Topics World's Best Waterfalls Waterfalls In The USA Regions Special States Special Parks Waterfalls Around The World The Americas Asia Oceania Europe and Africa Waterfall Community
Dawson Falls (Julie likes to refer to it as "Dawson's Creek Falls" because of the TV show she used to watch) is a wide river-type waterfall said to be on the Murtle River. Due to its broad characteristic, Julie seemed to like this waterfall better than Helmcken Falls, even though Helmcken is Wells Gray Provincial Park's most famous waterfall. This waterfall took us by surprise since we hadn't planned on visiting it (we didn't even know of its existence until we saw a sign at the Spahats Falls car park making us aware of its presence in the park).
In any case, after parking the car and getting onto the trail, the first thing we noticed was that there was a view looking down towards the Murtle River where there was a small waterfall and bridge before it. It took us a while to figure out that that was Mus' Bowl, which we passed by en route to Helmcken Falls.
Nonetheless, the walking path took us around 15-20 minutes to get to the fenced overlook of Dawson Falls. At first we didn't think we were going the right way because the trail strangely veered back towards the main road, but fortunately there was a sign there indicating the trail continued on (just as we were about to question the validity of the trail).
Curious to see where the main trail continued onto (as the fenced overlook wasn't the end of the trail apparently), I walked for a few minutes (in the upstream direction) until I saw a trail junction where a primitive, steep, and slippery trail descended towards the base of the falls. Given the amount of rain that had fallen on the day of our visit, this trail wasn't particularly easy due to its muddiness as well as the presence of fallen trees. But once I got to the bottom, I was able to get right up to the base of the falls where I could appreciate its size from up close.
I didn't explore any more of the falls so I don't know if the main trail would yield additional ways to see it.
Directions: From Clearwater, drive about 42km north on the Clearwater Valley Road. The signposted turnoff is on the right side of the road. Shortly after the turnoff is a fairly large car park.
For context of where Clearwater is, see the Helmcken Falls page for details.
Looking down at Mus' Bowl from near the car park and trailhead. Good thing we didn't think that was Dawson Falls! In fact, we actually had to cross that bridge to get to Helmcken Falls.
The trail strangely heads back towards the Clearwater Valley Road before veering away from it and ultimately towards the falls.
The steep path I took to get closer to the falls' base
I was at Rearguard Falls as a tourist in August 2010. I stumbled into rafters who told me I could not go down the path they were on, to the base of the falls...[more]