A Five-Star, Four-Waterfall Day, and a BEAR! - Thursday, July 14, 2022

Waterfalls are EVERYWHERE it seems in this mountainous region of northeastern British Columbia. Four falls in Monkman Provincial Park are beckoning us to their negative-ion embrace: Kinuseo Falls, Canary Falls, Barbour Falls, and Nesbitt's Knee Falls.

If you plan to do any hiking around here, we strongly recommend that you go to the Tumbler Ridge Visitor Centre and pick up brochures for what you intend to do. The brochures give you the driving distance and directions to the trailheads, the time/distance of the trail, and a rating. (I'll discuss their rating system later in the blog.) The brochure will also tell you exactly where the trail starts, what to expect along the way, cautions, history, stream crossings, birds you might see, etc. Very helpful information.

This is coal mine country. The Quintette Coal Ltd., Bullmoose Operating Corporation,  the Trek Corporation, the Anglo-American Trend, and Hillsborough Resources are all out of business. But they left lots of roads in the area and we took those rough gravel roads to the waterfalls. The main gravel road today is Kinuseo Falls Road.

Gravel roads galore around the
abandoned (and working) mines.
This is Kinuseo Falls Road.

The abandoned Quintette Coal Mine.

Quintette Coal Mine.

Quintette Coal Mine.

[NOTE: Conuma Resources--with its Brule and Wolverine Coal Mines--has been in business since 2016 and is still operating. They provide coal for the steelmaking industry.]

As I sit here writing this, I remember a saying about "the canary in the coal mine." This was an allusion to the birds (canaries) that miners carried into the mine tunnels with them. If a canary died in a coal mine, it meant dangerous gases, such as carbon monoxide, had collected in the mine. This provided a warning to the miners to exit the tunnel immediately.  [Source: Wikipedia.] 

So, my mind wonders, did Canary Falls get its name from the demise of the coal mines? But I digress.

You will pass through two tunnels past the Quintette Mine. The route to Kinuseo Falls crosses the mighty Murray River twice on single-lane wooden bridges with only a foot-high, wooden beam "curb." You can take unobstructed photos of the river because there is not a high railing.

Here is the mighty Murray
River that forms Kinuseo Falls.

This is a lovely side creek.

Driving this 51k gravel road is not for the faint of heart. Your teeth will get jarred on the many ruts and rocks. Today, a grader was smoothing new gravel. He saw us coming up behind him and pulled to the side to let us pass. There was some deep gravel at that point. I'm happy we have a big pick-up truck!

We then entered Monkman Provincial Park on Kinuseo Falls Road. I was driving. We were enjoying the scenery when, all of a sudden, an American black bear did a "pop-goes-the-weasel" on us. For one second all we saw were waist-high grasses, and then this black bear with a white chevron on its chest pops straight up on his hind legs to see what all the noise was about. I'd say that bear was 7' tall! I'm kicking myself for not backing up to take a photo of it. 

Bonus sighting: a beaver lodge 
in a lake.

It took about an hour and 10 minutes to get to Kinuseo Falls parking lot from our campground in Tumbler Ridge, most of that time was on Kinuseo Falls Road. The trail from the parking lot to the falls overlook is one of the easiest trails we've done so far in the Tumbler Ridge area. [I'm writing this in retrospect after having done four other falls.] We also hiked up to the Upper Viewpoint, as recommended by our friends in Edmonton, Veronica and Wayne.

A memorial plaque.

Earth's geology continues to amaze me. When we were in Waterton National Park, we saw a mountain that had an S-shaped rock fold as well. Imagine the geologic forces at work and the length of time it took to bend like that?

Rock folding. 

Rock folding (close up) and the
top of the falls.

The top of Kinuseo Falls. 

I took a photo of Kinuseo Falls from this viewpoint, but it just didn't compare to hiking up 0.15 miles (250 meters) to see the falls from the Upper Viewpoint. That is a moderate trail. 

Looking downriver from the main
viewpoint (that's easy to walk to).

Bob on the trail to the
Upper Viewpoint at Kinuseo.

Powerful Kinuseo Falls from the Upper
Viewpoint. Stunning!

The photo below shows the logs at the base of the falls. (Look closely at the bottom of the photo next to the trees.) Also, you can see the spray from the falls.

Logs and spray from the falls.

Proof we made it to the Upper
Viewpoint.

I love springtime and right now seems to be almost peak season for wildflowers.

Fireweed is in bloom.

Red Columbine (a favorite of mine!).

We headed back toward Tumbler Ridge. Three more waterfalls are on our list for today and they're (mostly) on the way back. Our next stop is Canary Falls for which the parking lot is on Kinuseo Falls Road. We have to let you know, that with all the walking and hiking we do, we usually know if trails are easy, moderate, strenuous, or challenging. 

It seems people in this neck of the woods are in better shape than we are. We have found most easy trails here are moderate, and their moderate trails are challenging. When we say moderate, to us it means the trail surface is rocks and roots, and the inclines are not steep; here, they are steep. Challenging to the locals means very steep trails with no steps, narrow trails with drop-offs, mud puddles, rockfall areas where you have to be very careful of where you place your feet to make sure rocks aren't wobbly, and very likely you will have to use ropes to get up and down the steeper parts. This has been our experience so far. 

We recommend taking hiking poles, dressing in layers, wearing high-topped hiking boots, carrying water, wearing a hat and sunscreen, spraying on bug repellant, packing an umbrella/poncho (depending on the weather forecast), bringing food/snacks, and allowing enough time to get there and get your hike done.

With that being said, we hiked the Canary Falls Trail. The sign says to walk the trail counter-clockwise so you can get a nice view of the falls as you walk up to them. We decided to take the shorter clockwise route to the falls. Here is what we found.

Yes, this route was the quickest way to Canary Falls, but you come to the top of the falls and the picture below is all you can see. It's a drop-off with no railing. I stood there and stretched my arms out as far as I could to try to get a better photo. Nope, this was the best I could do.

Looking down at Canary Falls 
from the top.

In order to see the whole waterfall from this direction required going down a very steep trail with ropes. See below. Um, nope, not me!

To get down (or up) 
to/from Canary Falls.

Bob, ever the adventurer and ready for these types of challenges, offered to go down and take a photo of the falls from the bottom. What a guy!! He got an awesome photo. I was amazed by how huge and beautiful this waterfall is. You'd never know it by looking at the top of it!

Canary Falls (photo by Bob).

Then came the hard part for Bob. He had to climb out on a steep muddy trail. What you see below is the "easy" part with the ropes. The bottom part was steep and muddy with NO ropes. I'm really glad he went down and I didn't!

Bob climbing up from
Canary Falls.

Bob climbing up from
Canary Falls.

We continued heading back toward Tumbler Ridge on Kinuseo Falls Road. There's gorgeous scenery out here.

Kinuseo Falls Road.

This is one of the single-lane bridges
over the Murray River
on Kinuseo Falls Road.

Another view of the Murray River.

Okay, next waterfall, please. That would be Barbour Falls. For that, we had to take a signed spur road a few kilometers off Kinuseo Falls Road. This was the roughest road we took today.

The first part of the trail had views
of a rushing creek. I think this was
our second-easiest trail.

They're pretty good with their 
signage on some trails.

The trail goes behind the two trees
on the left and you can see it again
 to the right of the trees.

Bright red fungi coming up.

More dire warnings.

Barbour Falls.

Check out the geology!

More wild rock formations.

Mushrooms of some type.

Our last waterfall today is Nesbitt's Knee Falls which is rated moderate. For that, we had to backtrack 2k on the spur road that went to Barbour Falls and turn onto another spur road. We took that spur 4k to Nesbitt's Knee Trail.

I make a lot of noise 
talking in bear country!!

Nesbitt's Knee Falls.

Pretty forest at the top of the falls.

You will see a new addition to my wardrobe...mosquito netting over my hat. I really got sick of mosquitoes flying up under my hat brim. This fixed that problem!

Nesbitt's Knee Falls.

Birch-leaved Spiraea
(Spiraea betulifolia).

The steepest part of the trail
was by the parking lot.

After we finished all our hikes, we headed back to the campground, changed our clothes, and went to dinner at the inn next to the Tumbler Ridge Visitor Centre. It was pretty good. I had a turkey BLT club sandwich with fries and Bob had a Monte Cristo sandwich with fries. What I really wanted was Chicken Pot Pie, but they were out of it along with a few other menu items.

On Friday, we're taking the 5th wheel to Dawson Creek to have a couple of things checked out. Bob is having an oil change done on our pick-up truck as well. 

TravelBug out.