Trail: Moul Falls
Location: Wells Gray Park
Distance from Vancouver: Approximately 5 hours
Directions (with a link to a Google map): Click here for directions
Time it took us to hike: 3 hours
Ages of children hiking: 10,7,4,1
Number of adults: 2
Stroller friendly: No
Dog friendly: Yes
Jellybean rating: 3/5
Wells Gray Park near Clearwater, British Columbia is 1.4 MILLION acres of outdoor bliss. You’ve got backcountry camping, hiking, fishing, picnic areas, lakes, waterfalls (SO MANY WATERFALLS), campgrounds, wildflower meadows, and historical sites all in one stunningly beautiful place.
My family and I were in Clearwater visiting friends and we decided to head out for a little adventure.
We had visited Dawson Falls, Spahats Falls and Helmcken Falls on our last visit there. While spectacular, getting the viewpoint for these waterfalls was a simple 5-10 minute stroll from the parking lot. We wanted something a little more, how shall we say, energy exerting for our kids this time:)
We stopped at the Farmer’s Market in Clearwater for a bite to eat before we set off and asked the locals what they thought was a good kid-friendly hike. A wonderful woman suggested that we go to Moal Falls. She said it was a 45-minute hike that was quite easy for kids. SOLD!
At the entrance of the park is a Visitor Centre. Definitely stop here. These folks are super friendly and informative. They told us how to get to the Moul Fall trailhead and gave us this lovely little map. The woman I spoke with was very knowledgeable. She suggested Moul Falls and said it would take 45 minutes. When I told her we have four kids she told me it would take an hour and a half. I certainly appreciated the reconsideration!
Head up the road (there’s one). At around the 25 km mark, you’ll see a sign on the right-hand side of the road for Moul Falls Trailhead. Take a left into the parking lot. You’re here!
The trail is well marked. Cross over the cattle grates and start walking down the wide path.
You’ll go down this path for quite some time. It’s not very exciting, so this is a really great opportunity to have a scavenger hunt, tell a story, or chit chat! We ended up finding all sorts of wildflowers, butterflies, and even a cracked open robins egg! The kids were excited to see what they could find next!
You’ll reach a sign that leads you down the path to the waterfall. You can see the sign coming up from quite a distance which is a really great motivator to keep going. Shortly after is another sign saying that the falls are about 15 minutes away. I told my kids we were almost there. Technically, I wasn’t lying, but I knew we still had a trek ahead of us.
Fortunately, the terrain changes here. It becomes a little more narrow and the trees are more plentiful. This makes for a nice change of scenery.
You’ll likely be able to hear the water roaring off in the distance. Pointing this out helped my kids understand that I maybe wasn’t entirely lying to them about “almost being there”.
There will be a couple spots to pull off the trail and get a sneak peek of a few smaller falls, but they’re not huge and there are steep drop-offs. Wait for the main event, it’s worth it!!
You’ll reach the top of the fall when you see the fence. The view isn’t awesome as there are some trees in the way but if you keep going along the fence you’ll find a way better view of the top.
Keep going along the fence. You’ll find another trail. Stay close with your kids here. The trail gets steeper here and there are spots where it becomes quite narrow with steep drop offs on the side. (Don’t worry, it sounds scarier than it was).
You’ll come to some stairs that you go down.
Once you’re at the bottom you’ll be amazed. The water was absolutely ROARING when we were there. We could feel the spray halfway down the stairs. My kids were absolutely mesmerized by the waterfall. It was so spectacular.
We stayed for a while and the kids got to have their “hiking treats”. These ones are my favorite. There’s enough in a box for each of the kids and for ME!
We headed back up the stairs, which was actually easier to convince the kids to do than I thought. I think they were still intrigued by all of their surroundings.
Once we got back on the trail my four-year-old was getting tired. By that time we had already been out for about 2 hours. We made a deal with her that she would get a piggyback ride from Daddy on the wide trail if she could make it through the narrow trail. That seemed to suit her just fine and she trucked along for the next while.
When we got back to the parking lot it was packed. It gets busy at this little spot, so keep that in mind. We got a fairly early start and didn’t have any difficulty finding a spot. That said, even though it appeared that the trail was super busy we didn’t seem to run into too many folks.
After we got everyone in the van we headed back into town. We stopped at a local cafe across from the tourism center for a coffee and ended up with bright blue ice cream for all!
Jellybean Rating Summary for Moul Falls
I give the Moul Falls trail a 3/5. It’s INCREDIBLY beautiful, but the first lag is long and pretty boring, to be honest. It took a lot of imagination on my end to keep the kids motivated to keep going. That said, there are a lot of things to discover on the trail that are pretty fascinating, so that made things easier. The trail was fairly flat and easy to walk on. The kids were impressed with the waterfall and decided that the trek was worth it to get there. We would do this trail again in a heartbeat if there weren’t SO MANY THINGS TO SEE IN WELLS GRAY PARK! We didn’t end up having enough time, but we’ll definitely be back!
Things to consider:
-The mosquitos and bugs here can get really bad. Make sure you are well prepared to keep these pesky guys off you!
Have fun!!
XO
Sam