Trail Name: Whitecroft Falls
Distance: 2 km
Time: 30 mins
Difficulty: Easy
Cell Service: No
Trail: Single track through the forest
Highlights: A wonderful hidden waterfall on the way to Sun Peaks.
To get there: This hike is about a 40 minute drive from Kamloops or 10 minutes from Sun Peaks. From Kamloops, take Highway 5 North towards Clearwater. Continue for 20 kms, and keep an eye out for signs for Sun Peaks. Exit right on Old Highway5, towards Sun Peaks Resort. Take your first left onto Tod Mountain Road which turns into Heffley Louis Creek Road. Continue following for about 23 kms. After crossing the cattle guard that brings you into Whitecroft, take your second left onto Cahilty Crescent. Park along Cahilty Crescent. Or get directions from Google here.
There are a number of access points for this trail, but we preferred starting on Cahilty Crescent as it offers the safest parking. After parking on Cahilty Crescent, continue back across the main road. The trail is directly in front of you, to the right of the cattle guard sign. From here, follow the trail as it climbs up alongside the creek.
Whitecroft Falls, also known as the McGillivray Creek Waterfall, is a great pitstop on any trip to Sun Peaks. This trail climbs on a gentle incline and towards the end becomes a bit rocky and full of roots, however still easy to navigate. This trail is suitable for most including young children, and pets. Be aware of possible wildlife in the area. Enjoy the falls!
Tina W
31 Jul 2018Excellent instructions. Easy trail. Wouldn’t have found the trail without this site. Cute little bench at the end.
Erin Johnson
6 Aug 2020Great trail for our family!
Sean
6 Sep 2020!!!!!!!!These waterfalls are no longer there!!!!!!!
Creek is too low and they are dried out. Very disappointing, could’ve saved me and my family the 45 minute drive from Kamloops.
Liz
9 Sep 2020Sean, I think you may have I think you may have gone to the wrong spot. I was their September 7th & the falls are as lively as ever.
Tristan
17 Oct 2020The waterfall is still there. At certain times of the year, the flow of the waterfall is different. In the spring, for example, the waterfall is at its fullest, from the snow melt. I was just there yesterday (Oct 17), and it was pretty full.
Blaine Schultz
17 Oct 2020In the 20+ years I lived in that area, (1979 – 2002) & McGillvary Creek never came close to drying up near the falls.
What is interesting is the area above and below the falls was mined extensively at the turn of the century and right into the 1950’s. There are still old cables and pieces of mining machinery near the falls. Just above falls, in the creek can be seen a piece of tapered homemade pipe used for hydrulicing. The boulders along the creek were held apart with huge timbers so the miners could get down to bed rock. A fellow I worked with in the 1970’s who did some placer mining mentioned there was a even a “Grizzly” in operation on the creek in the 1950’s. A Grizzly is a large hopper into which gravel is dumped and rotated or rocked. He mentioned the operation was quite lucrative. I panned the creek many times and (thankfully) never found a flake. Here’s a true story however that kindled my interest and perhaps yours.
One spring day in 1981 two ladies with fancy bonnets and a gentleman knocked on my door asking the location of an old cabin that used to exist just below the falls. On the walk up to show them the remains of the building, the Gentleman mentioned they had with them the ashes of an old miner who wanted his creamated remains scattered around the cabin. One of the Ladies was his sister. He went on to tell how this old miner ( in the jar) used to tell a story about how close he had come to finding the “mother lode”. What supposedly had happened was that he found a piece of gold with very rough edges, meaning it hadn’t been washed downstream very far from where it had broke off. I never saw them again but it certainly sparked my interest and I hauled out my gold pan again”.
All I ever found around McGillvary Creek was an old prospectors pick, and tin cans from old miners campsites.
Also above the falls was an old “hippie” camp with at one time 3 geodesic domes.
I did a lot of trail improvement work in that area for my trail ride tours and today a lot are used by the mountain bike crowd. The orginal trails were put in by the Dominion Forest Service in the 1920’s.
Keep your eyes peeled as in the spring American Dippers nest near the Falls.
Lots of history in that area.
Jay Akerley
3 Mar 2021Blaine Schultz – you were around a long time and that is great history you related above. I am an active salmon steward (Cougar Creek Streamkeepers) in Delta and have a residence at Sun Peaks. I am very interested in salmon and read with some astonishment that the Louis Creek Coho run makes it all the way up to the falls. Have you ever seen Coho Salmon at the base of the falls?
Alicia
13 Jan 2021Do you know if this trail is okay to hike in the winter?
Hike Kamloops
2 Mar 2021People do walk it in winter. Just make sure you are wearing appropriate footwear.
Kira Makela
18 Jan 2021I was at the falls yesterday! It is a very short trail and easy to follow. Trails have a 2 inch layer of ice over them so I would reccomend good shoes or microspikes. I love the little bench at the end, I hope to visit it again in spring!
Brodie
9 Nov 2021How is the drive on this road in the winter??? Is it maintained at all? Would I need a 4×4?
Thanks!