Spahats Creek Falls, Waterfall in Wells Gray Provincial Park, Canada.
Spahats Creek Falls is a waterfall on Spahats Creek in Wells Gray Provincial Park, British Columbia. The creek drops about 60 m over the first tier and, counting the second tier, 75–80 m in total, into a side canyon of Granite Canyon on the Clearwater River. The falls cut through lava that erupted from Trophy Mountain starting about 300,000 years ago.
The falls were originally called Bear Creek Falls but were renamed in the 1960s because many locations in British Columbia shared that name. The gorge itself was carved by volcanic eruptions roughly 300,000 years ago, and these ancient geological events are visible in the rock layers today.
Spahats is the First Nations word for bear, and the stream was long known as Bear Creek. The first accurate topographic map of the Clearwater Valley, published in 1953, labelled it "Bear Creek" with the falls as "Spahats (Bear) Creek Falls"; "Spahats" was officially adopted by the late 1960s because British Columbia already had about 20 Bear creeks.
The viewing platform is a five-minute walk from the parking lot, and a second trail follows the canyon rim to the Clearwater Valley Overlook in about 20 minutes. The descent to the base of the falls drops 300 m and should be avoided in May and June, when the canyon is wet and the creek may flood. The Spahats Canyon footbridge was washed out in 2020 and has not been replaced.
The falls drop about 60 m in the first tier, but counting the second tier the total is closer to 75–80 m. The canyon was cut after lava from Trophy Mountain filled the Clearwater valley to a depth of over 300 m, starting about 300,000 years ago; meltwater floods then finished carving the side canyon.
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