Broad curtain
Bank to bank.
Ymblanter — CC BY-SA 4.0 · ChickenChocken — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gopi.Perumal — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Gopi.Perumal — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Jason Hollinger — CC BY 2.0
Dawson Falls is one of seven waterfalls on the Murtle River in Wells Gray Provincial Park, British Columbia, about 36 km in a straight line north of the town of Clearwater. The park road, Clearwater Valley Road, passes close by. The falls were named in 1913 by the land surveyor Robert Henry Lee after George Herbert Dawson, then Surveyor-General of British Columbia. Lee and his crew camped near the falls in the summers of 1913 and 1914 while surveying settlers' lots on the south side of the river, and on 24 July 1913, while surveying west from Dawson Falls, he discovered the famous Helmcken Falls. Here the Murtle River drops over lava flows about 200,000 years old in a broad curtain of churning white water stretching from bank to bank between forests of pine and spruce, with sand and gravel deposits from an older river beneath the lava. About 600 m downstream lies the Mushbowl, where the river drops 5 m and is split by a central rock. Visiting is free; the main viewpoint is a 10-minute walk from the road, and the top of the falls a few minutes more. Pyramid Campground lies close to the falls, and the flow is strongest in late spring and early summer with the snowmelt.
Bank to bank.
A rock splits the river.
Around the falls.
Clearwater Valley Road, Wells Gray Provincial Park, British Columbia, Canada
About a 10-minute walk.
Late spring and early summer.