I recently posted about my experience backpacking the Berg Lake Trail in Mount Robson Provincial Park. While that was an adventure on its own, it wasn’t the end of my trip. We had a few more holidays left after finishing Berg Lake and we decided to visit Wells Gray Provincial Park on the way back to Vancouver.

Wells Gray Provincial Park is sometimes better known as “the waterfall park” and is popular both among British Columbians and tourists. It’s a large park located north of Clearwater, which is a ~5 hour drive from Vancouver. Like I said, the park is most well known for its waterfalls, but it’s also popular for paddling, with lots of water access campgrounds located on Murtle Lake and Clearwater Lake. It also has some really nice wildflower hikes. We didn’t have the time to do any paddling, but we set goals to see waterfalls and wildflowers!

My post on waterfalls is coming next week. After spending a night in Clearwater to shower and treat ourselves to real food, our first stop in Wells Gray was to visit Trophy Meadows along the trail to the Sheila Lake Wilderness Area. It was the first week of August, so it was a little past peak time for wildflowers, but there was still lots blooming in the meadows. Access to the trail is at the south end of the park, very close to Clearwater, so you don’t have to drive too far. Take a right onto Spahats Creek FSR, right after you pass the turnoff for Spahats Falls. From there, continue on the FSR to Road 201, which will take you to the trailhead. It’s a gravel road, so it’s not in great shape, but you should be able to make it all the way to the trailhead in most vehicles.

I’ve heard this trail is really popular and can get very busy, but we visited on a Friday, so the trail was pretty much empty. The trail starts uphill through the forest for ~2km, with over 200m of elevation gain, before you reach the start of the meadows. Once you reach the meadows, you can really take your time and customize the trail to whatever length you prefer. The meadows are huge and sweeping and completely covered in wildflowers. It’s very beautiful and you can see the surrounding mountain peaks in the background. There’s limited shade though, so I recommend going early to avoid the midday heat. 

The meadows continue for ~2.5km and there is an outhouse located around the midpoint. Once you reach the end of the meadows (around 4.5km into the trail), it’s not much further to hike to the Sheila Lake Wilderness Campground. You can hike up to a little plateau that looks down on Sheila Lake. There’s ~20 tent pads located around the lake and it’s a really beautiful campsite. The tent pads are all in great shape and there’s a few small open-air shelters around the lake that have been constructed for cooking. There was only 1 tent set up when we visited, but I think it gets pretty busy on the weekend and we did see a few groups hiking in on our way out later in the day. It would be a really nice place to camp and I’d like to return someday for an overnight.

If you hike all the way to the end of the meadows, I recommend adding on the loop around Sheila Lake. There’s a few small tarns up there and it makes for a nice little circuit before heading back to the trailhead. It’s ~12km round trip if take this route. If you’re looking to do a shorter hike, then just hike through the meadows. If you’re looking for a longer hike, it is possible to continue a little further. We hadn’t planned to go further, but we were feeling strong after 6 days at Berg Lake, so we decided to hike up to Long Hill.

The alpine area at Sheila Lake is all very open and you can see Trophy Mountain and the surrounding peaks from the lake. There’s not really an official trail past the lake loop, but you can follow a faint trail up to the pass at the base of Long Hill. Some people will even route-find their way up Trophy Mountain, but we decided to target Long Hill for our lunch break. It added another 3km to our day (15km in total), as well as another 150m of elevation gain. 

The trail continues past some more ponds and then gets pretty steep as you hike up the mountainside to Long Hill. There’s a few boulder fields that you have to guess your way across, but overall it’s not too difficult. There’s not much trail to follow, but it’s not hard to read the terrain. We stopped at the top to enjoy our lunch and the view of the alpine, though it was pretty windy. We returned via the campsite and of course, I had to go for a little swim in one of the ponds. 

We saw a marmot on the way back and enjoyed the meadows just as much on the way down. Actually, I’d say we enjoyed them a little bit more on the way back as the lighting was better. Overall it was a 6 hour hike for us, which was a bit ambitious immediately after hiking 6 days to Berg Lake, but we really enjoyed it and I would definitely recommend. We did climb 650m of elevation across the 15km trail, but it’s not very steep at any point (except for the summit to Long Hill), so I’d say it’s a pretty accessible trail for most people.