Placeholder photo Wells Gray Provincial Park · British Columbia · Since 1988
A snowcat ride, a skin track, a woodstove already warm. For over 35 years the Trophy, Discovery and Fight Meadow chalets have been the way in to untracked Cariboo powder and summer meadows that go on for days.
Entry № 1 — The idea
Wells Gray Park is 1.4 million acres of meadow, peak and river — one of the best-kept secrets in Canada. In 1987, BC Parks asked for proposals to open a corner of its alpine; the first huts went up the following year, built by Ian Eakins and Tay Briggs to run on propane, solar and firewood.
Most of the people in the cabins each winter have been before. This is a place you return to — the same week, the same crew, the same meadow filling in with snow. These pages are for the first-timers.
Entry № 2 — The cabins
Placeholder photo Right at treeline, 7,000 ft. The steepest terrain in the system — ridges, gullies and chutes out the back door. Sleeps 10 in comfort.
Placeholder photo 6,400 ft, spruce-and-cedar inside, eight small private rooms. A powder-holding valley with long, unbroken fall lines.
Placeholder photo A vast subalpine meadow system made for touring and snowshoeing — terrain for every ability, silence for everyone.
Placeholder photo December — April
Guided, catered ski weeks — or rent a whole cabin with your own crew, self-guided and self-catered. Snowcat staging to Trophy, helicopter into Discovery and Fight Meadow. The most reliable powder snow in the province, by the operator’s own long record.
Plan a winter week →
Placeholder photo July — September
Hut-to-hut hiking beneath wildflower slopes, guided 3- to 7-day trips, canoe-and-hike combos on Clearwater and Azure Lakes, and self-guided stays at Fight Meadow Chalet.
See summer trips →Entry № 3 — Evenings
The chalets run on propane and solar — warm ovens, hot showers by foot-pump, drying racks by the stove. Trophy and Discovery each keep a cedar sauna for winter. Bring sheets or a sleeping-bag liner; the duvets and pillows are already up there.
What’s in the cabins →
Placeholder photo Entry № 4 — Booking
Winter weeks are offered to returning groups first, then new dates are released each spring. You call or write, hold a week with a deposit, and sign the paperwork before you fly. It is old-fashioned on purpose — and it means the person answering knows the snowpack.