Wells Gray Park: What to Pack for a Perfect BC Camping Trip
Waking Up in the Wild: Your Early Summer Escape to Wells Gray Provincial Park
You didn’t need much convincing—just the whisper of warmer mornings and the promise of quiet trails. May in British Columbia is magic. The snow has retreated from the valleys, the campgrounds are open, and the crowds haven’t yet arrived. You wanted peace. A little wilderness. A recharge.
So you packed your gear and headed toward Wells Gray Provincial Park.
You’ve seen the photos—towering waterfalls, moss-covered trails, and wide-open skies above glacial lakes. But experiencing it? That was something else entirely.
Setting Up in Serenity
After a few hours on the road and a quick stop in Clearwater, you arrived at one of the park’s backcountry camp areas just as the golden hour settled in. The forest felt alive—birds overhead, frogs singing from the water’s edge, and the sound of Helmcken Falls thundering somewhere in the distance.
You grabbed your tent and went straight to work. Your gear? Reliable. Lightweight. Exactly what you needed for a trip like this.
Your MSR Hubba Hubba™ Backpacking Tent from Backcountry.com unfolded like second nature, sturdy and simple to pitch solo. Your NEMO Tensor™ sleeping pad and Sea to Summit Spark sleeping bag—both ultralight and toasty—transformed a patch of forest floor into something that felt like home.
👉 Check out the Backcountry Camping Guide to upgrade your gear
Dinner by Firelight
Cooking outdoors is its own kind of therapy. You boiled water with your Jetboil Flash Stove, sliced up fresh veggies, and dropped them into your titanium pot with a quick-cook quinoa mix. The flame flickered just enough to light the clearing around you as you ate—calm, hungry, content.
There’s something about eating outside that makes the simplest meals taste gourmet. You washed your pot in the river, zipped up your bear-safe food sack, and settled in for the evening.
A Morning You’ll Remember
You woke to the sound of a loon calling across the lake.
No alarm clock. No email notifications. Just the early light and a world that felt untouched.
You crawled out of your tent, pulled on your Patagonia Nano Puff Jacket, and wandered barefoot to the water. With coffee in hand and a mist hanging low over the trees, you realized: this is why you came.
You didn’t need luxury. You needed this—time to breathe, space to think, and the right gear to make it effortless.
Why It’s Time to Go
If you’ve been putting off a night in nature, here’s your sign. May is the perfect time to slip into the backcountry before summer crowds roll in. And Wells Gray? It delivers everything you’re craving—lush trails, epic waterfalls, calm nights, and a thousand places to call “your spot.”
You don’t need to be a hardcore explorer. You just need to go. And when you do, you’ll want gear that works—reliable, tested, and designed for adventure.