The road from Elkford to the Elk Lakes Provincial Park is 40 miles of dirt road. 40 miles of hell. The potholes were horrendous. It took 1.5 hours to drive the 40 miles. Tara said she enjoyed it. What? Ok dear, next time you are driving. Along the way we saw a moose and also picked up a hitchhiker, a through hiker who was doing section B of the Great Divide Trail. I knew the GDT ran through here but did not know it went along this road. He was grateful he did not have to walk the very boring road.
We finally made it to the trailhead and started the hike. It was an hour later than I wanted. I gave the GDT hiker one of my Cokes and we parted ways.
There are plenty of park signs along the trail pointing the way to Petain Falls or Petain Basin or similar. Some of them are scratched out. Some are not scratched out. Why are they scratched out, you ask? Well let me tell you! There are five namesakes in this area: Petain Mountain, Petain Glacier, Petain Creek, Petain Basin, Petain Falls. They are (were) named after General Phillipe Petain, a commander of the French Army in WWI. In WWII, he collaborated with the Nazis and was convicted of treason in 1945. The landmarks were named in 1918 or 1919 by the British Columbia government. The name was rescinded around the year 2021.
There are two really stupid things about this: Firstly, why did it take 75 years for the BC government to figure out that Petain was a Nazi ally and revoke the name? Really? They did not know before 2021 that Petain was a Nazi? It is all because of the idiotic wokeness in the world today that they finally decided to rescind the name, I am certain. Ok so great, they rescinded the name. Here is the second stupid thing: give these major landmarks a new name! Don’t just say they are “unnamed” (which is what they did). This is a major mountain, major glacier, and a major creek and they are all now officially “unnamed”. Well … the (reliable) map I am currently using still says Petain Creek (though it does say the mountain and glacier is unnamed). If the creek is still Petain then the waterfall is still Petain Falls. I am going to continue calling the waterfall Petain Falls until the BC government wakes up and gives it a proper name (it might be a long time).
Enough of that dumbness, let’s get to the hike now, shall we? This is Grizzly country. I read multiple reports that people had seen grizzly bears on this hike. I have never backpacked in Grizzly country before. I remember I did one day hike in Alaska where there was a mother grizzly in the area with a cub and the mom had been reported to charge some hikers. I did not have bear spray then but I did the hike quickly and did not see anything. We all had bear spray for this hike. I felt that it was safe enough for Journey to be off leash for the most part. She hiked right beside Tara or myself or in between us for 100% of the hike. She never strayed off the trail. There was just one section where I put her on leash because it was quite a brushy area. Other than that, she was perfectly fine. It has been annoying me recently when I hear non dog owners tell dog owners what to do. Your dog must be on leash! Don’t be a schmuck. I am a responsible dog owner and I know my dog is perfect off leash and deserves to be off leash. The other thing that is apparently abundant on this trail is porcupines. I read that some people saw as many as six porcupines on this trail! I certainly did not want Journey to get up too close to one of those. Yikes. Did we see any porcupines or bears? Keep reading.
Tara’s pack was only 20 pounds or so but she was struggling with it. Lynal offered to carry it for her. It was incredibly nice of him but in a way I wish he hadn’t. They hiked on ahead of us to the waterfall. Tara did not make it. We found a lovely spot by the creek and decided to camp there. But Lynal had her pack. I ran up the trail to find them, almost all the way to the waterfall. They were just on the way back down. We walked back to camp and I set up the tent and we made dinner. We filtered water from the creek. The water from the Elkford campground the night before was horrible but this 4000 year old glacier water tasted amazingly good. After dinner, I hiked back up to the waterfall by myself. I could have (should have) taken Journey but decided to leave her with Tara at camp.
Petain Falls is 305 ft. high and it is absolutely massive. There is a great overlook for the waterfall. You can also go right up to the base of it as well (which I did of course). The mist was tremendous, making it difficult to photograph from up close. Other waterfalls were pouring off the cliff as well from different glaciers. Crossing the creek was not possible. It was absolutely roaring. All of this from glacier melt. I wanted to cross because it’s the only way to see the upper tiers of the falls (it’s over 1200 ft. high in total). I was bummed about that but I expected it. I did walk back along the ridge as far as I could and was at least able to glimpse the upper tiers.
On the hike back to camp I saw a porcupine. This was very cool. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. No grizzy bears though. It was a remarkable (and prickly) Day 2 on the Canada road trip in Elk Lakes Provincial Park.
Canada road trip! I’ve wanted to do this backpacking trip to Petain Falls in the Canadian Rockies for a long time. I had a great plan to backpack here with my wife Tara and my sister and brother in law. Tania and Lynal did not want to backpack but they said they’d do it as a day hike. We met up with them at the campground in Elkford for the first night.
There were a lot of fire trucks on the road to Elkford. At least I thought they were fire trucks. There was smoke on the horizon. Was there a new fire in the area? It looked pretty thick up ahead, the exact location where we would be hiking the next day. This would completely ruin the trip. Well I found out they were not fire trucks but mining trucks! There is a huge coal mining operation here and they work day and night, seven days a week. The traffic is constant 24 hours of the day. That certainly explains all the noise throughout the night in the campground with cars driving back and forth, and drag racing in the night as well! Argh!
After setting up camp and eating dinner I took Journey on an evening hike to Josephine Falls. Everyone else was saving their energy for the next day so it was just the two of us going on this five mile hike.
I would likely never be back in Elkford again so I wanted to do this hike while I had the chance. I was not sure where to start the hike. It should be obvious but there was no place to park and there were no signs. Although I’m sure my planned route would have worked fine I was at the wrong location. A ranger happened to be there and he told me where the proper trailhead was located. Perfect. Thank you sir.
It was a pretty easy to hike to the main waterfall. Josephine Falls is 73 ft high. It is a gorgeous drop on the Fording River. You cannot see the falls from the fence along the cliff so I had to cross over it and scramble down to a spot where I could photograph it. It was too sketchy for Journey so I left her up at the fence line. She waited perfectly for me as usual. There’s also a middle and lower falls which I went down to. The middle falls was a smallish 47 ft. drop and unfortunately there was no view of the lower falls. We hiked back up to the car, drove back to the campground, and went to bed (or tried to!). It was a beautiful Day 1 on the Canada road trip in the Canadian Rockies.
Our whole family was sick before we went to Canada. Tara and Jadon had the flu, Nekoda and I had colds. My wife claims our colds turned into bronchitis or RSV or something. I don’t know but I had a horrendous lingering cough. We were getting over it and not contagious anymore by the time we started the trip but we still had those horrible coughs.
My energy was non-existent as well. I did not do much hiking up in Canada as I had wanted to. I took Journey out on some easy hikes in the snow. She needs exercise every day. I did not do anything difficult. The only waterfall I went to was Marysville Falls which I go to every time I am up there. It is a very easy hike. We continued on down to the river which also is an easy hike but coming back up the hill was a monstrosity for me because of my lack of energy and sickness. It did me in for the rest of the day. Journey had no such troubles coming back up the hill. She was not sick, thankfully.
Marysville Falls was almost completely frozen. It is always interesting to see what it will be like in the winter. How frozen will you be this time, my dear Mary? I think they have had a fairly warm winter up there so far. Only in the week or so before we got there did it get cold and they got some snow. I guess it was enough to freeze over the waterfall. I was surprised. It was a nice easy hike to dear Marysville Falls.
I think Journey had quite a bit of fun up in Canada. We went on a few hikes in the snow (she loves the snow), and she had loads of fun playing with her cousins Siri and Ebbi, especially Siri. They would chase each other around the yard for an endless amount of time. It was funny because Journey is so much faster than Siri this year. Siri had no chance at all getting the ball when they played fetch. Ha ha. But they both had fun.
On the last day Journey, Nekoda, and I went to Cherry Creek Falls (again). Whenever I have been there in the past the road has always been plowed right to the trailhead. This year it was not plowed. There was just a tad too much snow on the ground to drive it but it was only 1 kilometer so it was no big deal for us to hike in to the waterfall. Journey in particular was happy about the additional hiking in the snow.
As expected the last section down to the bottom was very icy. We did not want Journey going down so we took turns. I went down first to take my photos, then Nekoda went down. I told her in no uncertain terms not to go out on the dangerous ice at the bottom. So what does she do? Goes out on the ice. Ugh. Teenagers.
It was not very cold this year in Canada. There was a bit more snow than last year (not too much though). We did not have very many days up there so I did not have any hiking plans, however I always have to go visit Marysville Falls. It is very easy to get to and very close to my sister’s house. I have probably been to it more times than my sister has. Ha ha! It is also very interesting to see how much snow and ice is covering the waterfall. This year it was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be like: decent flow in the creek and a little snow and ice but not too much. It was perfect.
After photographing the waterfall I took Journey down to the bottom where the creek meets the river. From there the trail continues on the other side of the creek but there was too much water in the creek to cross it without getting wet and I did not want Journey (or myself) to get the shivers from the ice cold water so we continued along the river on this side of the creek. The trail only went a short distance before the snow became too deep. We scared up a couple deer and they decided to escape from us by swimming across the river. It was fun to watch them cross. Journey was certainly interested in them. I saw some unexpected wildlife on this trip. A lot of deer. Only one elk this year (usually I see a lot of elk and a herd of them often come straight through my sister’s yard). I also saw a fox and a moose, both of which are quite unusual to see. It was a lovely short trip to British Columbia.
