Granite Falls
- Kaitlin
- May 18
- 3 min read
May 16-18, 2025
Distance: 18km (one-way)
Time required (paddling): 3-4 hours each way
Nate and I spent 3 days camping at Granite Falls on the Indian Arm for my 30th birthday.
Granite Falls is one of three marine campsites in the Indian Arm Provincial Park (officially renamed as Say Nuth Khaw Yum Provincial Park). It's the farthest, followed by Bishop Creek and then Twin Islands.
It was raining a bit when we left from Deep Cove. We had rented a tandem kayak. We were fairly quick, especially with the tailwind. We hugged the west shoreline as we made our way north up the Indian Arm. We stopped for a 30-minute lunch at Bishop's Creek before rounding the west side of Croker Island and paddling over to Granite Falls, which is on the east side. Our total paddling time was 3 hours.
We had seen several seals, some bald eagles, and an otter during our paddle.
The campsites are on the south side of the falls. There's 10 gravel tent pads, a bear cache, and two pit toilets.
We got our water from the waterfall, which required a bit of a walk across slippery rocks. During one of the times we were coming back, Nate saw orcas in the distance and we ran over to watch them. There were three of them and they were breaching out of the water a little bit. They got further away as we watched but it was super cool to see them! I had never seen orcas in the wild before.
We saw a few bald eagles, including one that perched on top of one of the trees that we used to tie our tarp to.
We had the camp entirely to ourselves that night, which was really lovely. What wasn't lovely was the mouse that found its way into our tent during the night. We had both felt it scurrying over us and realized at the same time that it was in our tent. Thankfully, we managed to get it to jump out of the tent door without us needing to evacuate the tent. Somehow, I haven't had any rodent issues on any of my adventures until this one.
The second day, it was raining pretty heavily in the morning. We waited until it died down a bit to go and explore in our kayak. We paddled around the north end of the Indian Arm. There were dozens and dozens of seals in the water. You could hear them huffing constantly. Some were pretty curious about our paddles and boat.
Some other people started to arrive by the late afternoon. There was a huge group of people beside us that night but thankfully, they were pretty quiet.
On the third day (and my birthday), we had a leisurely morning before packing up and leaving. Unfortunately, we had to battle against heavy headwinds and rain. It was very slow-going. It made no sense to stop for breaks, so we decided to paddle straight through. It took us four slow, cold, wet, and sore hours but we made it. We were both pretty spent by the end.
Overall, it was a lovely way to spend my 30th birthday. It had all my favourite things: nature, adventuring, camping, wildlife, and my partner.
What a wonderful adventure!