Leon Turnbull Photography

Our family trip to Desolation Sound in beautiful  British Columbia, Canada, was a long time in the making. My mom planned and arranged this for our families (her, my family, and my sister’s family) way back in 2020. Of course we all know what happened that year. We tried again in 2021 but travel was still prohibited for us to Canada. Finally in 2022 we were all set to go. BC or bust! We all tested negative darnit! We were all going to Canada darnit! We were all excited darnit! But alas, sadly, it still did not work out perfectly well for all of us (stay tuned for Day 4 to find out why).

My mom did most of the planning for this trip. I was just along for the ride. So that means this was not primarily a waterfall trip. It was primarily a family vacation and ocean trip. Nonetheless, I still managed to see and photograph about 20 (or more) incredible waterfalls on this vacation. BC is so amazing!

One thing I did plan myself was the first day (before we met up with the rest of the family the next day on the Sunshine Coast). We stayed the first night in Squamish BC where there were 5 awesome waterfalls I wanted to see in Squamish and Whistler that I had not seen before.

We arrived at Squamish early and hung around town a bit before we could check into our hotel. We found out (too late) that the hotel we booked has a bar below the rooms and they play loud music until 2AM! THANKFULLY, we came on a Monday and they do not do this on Mondays. (big sigh of relief). We checked in and then went to A&W for dinner where I got my annual mozza burger fix. Mozza burgers are my absolute favorite! They don’t have these in USA so whenever I go to Canada we MUST go to A&W! It is not optional. After dinner we drove up to Whistler to check out 4 of the waterfalls.

The last one we went to: incredibly beautiful Brandywine Falls. I measured it to be 171 ft. high though it is officially cited by the park as being 230 ft. high (not even close). We arrived at the park just before sunset. Supposedly they close the gates at sunset so we had very little time to walk down to the viewpoint. My son Jadon stayed in the car while Tara and Nekoda and myself quickly walked to the viewpoint. It is a very easy walk. Brandywine Falls was flowing very beautifully! It is absolutely gorgeous and arguably the prettiest waterfall in all of British Columbia. I have wanted to see this one for a very long time. Even though it is August all the waterfalls in British Columbia were flowing very well. A drought for California does not mean the same for BC. Thanks to La Nina, BC had an above average winter and spring. We picked the perfect year to come up here to see waterfalls in August. Sweet goodness gracious!

We did not get locked in by the park rangers even though it was a bit past sunset when we got back to the car. Whew, that was a close one. We returned to our hotel in Squamish and had a good sleep with no loud music to keep us awake. It was an awesome first day on the west coast of British Columbia.