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‘Endurance sightseeing’ around Tumbler Ridge
Greg Amos – Special to the Tumbler Ridge News
Wednesday July 21, 2010  | Nick Maclean takes the time to appreciate one of the Monkman Cascades during an early July tour of Tumbler Ridge waterfalls. Through extensive planning and a lot of trail running, Maclean and Daniel Helm visited 42 waterfalls around Tumbler Ridge in just under three days.
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Picture this: tired legs striding over uneven and half-submerged river rocks, slowly heading upstream into a cool mist. Heavy breathing is submerged under a thunderous roar, growing louder with each step taken. Around a bend in a canyon wall, suddenly it appears: a towering waterfall. A camera is pulled out, framing two beaming faces against the tumultuous pounding whitewater. And then it’s on to the next destination.
Call it a new sport – endurance sightseeing. It might have been invented earlier this month in Tumbler Ridge.
Through rigorous planning and plenty of stamina, Daniel Helm, 18, and Nick Maclean, also 18, visited 42 waterfalls near Tumbler Ridge in a total of 63 hours and 52 minutes. They covered everything from 100-metre-tall Bergeron Falls, the tallest accessible falls in northern B.C., to the diminutive Mini Falls.
For many visitors, the awe-inspiring, 60-metre-tall Kinuseo Falls (which stands eight metres higher than Niagara Falls) is the only waterfall of note in the area. But the unique sandstone and limestone geological formations around Tumbler Ridge, combined with snow-fed creeks and rivers running down from the Rocky Mountains, make Tumbler Ridge possibly the best part of the province to find waterfalls in. Helm and MacLean set out to prove there are plenty more worth seeing, and to do it in record time.
“Tumbler Ridge is one of the only places you can see this many waterfalls in three days,” explained Helm. “This is something that can be done so close to the town, yet it had never been done before.”
Helm and MacLean (a recent high school graduate from Quesnel) met en route to a provincial track and field competition in 2005, and have been competing with each other since then. Their goal was to look at a local adventure that was “a little harder than the usual,” said Helm.
The pair started the mission at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 3. Charles Helm (Daniel’s father) provided “pack-mule support” for the pair en route to a series of falls south of Tumbler Ridge, while Kevin Sharman guided the two on a 10-kilometre bike trek to Red Deer Falls, south of Tumbler Ridge. Fierce winds funnelling through rock walls on the return trip forced them top walk their bikes through some sections. They also visited Belcourt Falls and Wapiti Falls before heading north to take in Babcock Falls, Tepee Falls, Quality Falls, and Flatbed Falls. The day wrapped up a dinner that lasted two hours for the hungry hikers.
Day two was the most difficult leg of the trip, as the runners had to contend with 20 kilometres of dense bushwhacking, including an ultra-steep three kilometre descent through forest to arrive at Wolverine Falls. Two separate bushwhacks were also required to make it from the road to Tunnel Falls and Perry Creek Falls. The exhausting effort proved the mental crux of the trip, Helm said.
The third day began with a jet boat departure on the Murray River at 6 a.m. Four falls - Bergeron Falls, Quantum Falls, Quillon Falls, and Query Falls – were accessed this way, though it still involved five kilometres of hiking to reach the destinations. A hour’s drive south of Tumbler Ridge brought the pair within sight of the end. The duo hiked towards their final destination in the heart of Monkman Provincial Park, and one of the world’s most unique set of waterfalls: the Monkman Cascades.
Each of the eight successive features whitewater plunging over a limestone shelf into brilliant aquamarine pools below. Centuries of pounding by water has created lake-like widenings in the pristine Murray River, creating an idyllic masterpiece of nature – one that remains virtually unknown outside the Peace Region.
“If I die tomorrow, I will die happy, for I have visited the Monkman Cascades,” wrote naturalist Tony Greenfield in his now-classic volume, Waterfalls of British Columbia - A Guide to BC’s 100 Best Falls. Greenfield places the Cascades amongst the top three waterfalls in the entire province.
Helm and MacLean checked each Cascade off their list as they made their way upstream, but saved perhaps the best of the falls for last: the brilliant Brooks Falls, which takes a dramatic bend in the river before hurtling water over the precipice. The trip wrapped up with a high five at Brooks Falls at 9 p.m. on July 5.
“I don’t want to see another waterfall for months,” quipped Helm during a post-trip interview.
Gas was the only expense incurred on the trip, while the runners themselves were fueled by a variety of wholesome food. Marathon runners might get by with power gels, but given the often steep and unforgiving terrain, the trailblazing duo opted for more substantial food: muffins, sugar snacks, apples, bananas, and leftover pizza.
They hydrated themselves with a single shared Camelbak full of water, and wore essentially the same clothes for three days: a polypro running t-shirt, spandex shorts, and a pack containing a sweater, hat, gloves, and a long sleeve shirt in case the weather turned.
Feet were a different story: they went through ten pairs of socks, constantly being changed to keep their feet dry. Constantly plunging feet into glacial streams means wet feet, so each packed two pairs of runners: one to wear, the other to dry out on the car’s roof rack as they commuted between falls. But the fate of Maclean’s feet was sealed after he left a shoe behind, leading to a cringe-inducing seven blisters by trip’s end. Helm somehow remained blister free.
While tourists to Tumbler Ridge often choose to visit only Kinuseo Falls, there are so many others to see and appreciate, explained Helm.
“All of them have a different aspect, a different personality,” said Helm.
Using photos and video footage taken along the way, Helm plans to spend the remaining summer months creating a short film to document the local adventure.
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