Cariboo Mountains Park is a BC Parks wilderness area between Bowron Lake and Wells Gray parks. BC Parks says these parks form one continuous protected area in the Cariboo Mountains that is over 760,000 hectares.
The park is dominated by serrated peaks, glaciers, forested valleys, lakes, wetlands, ancient red cedar, and hemlock forests.
Cariboo Mountains Park is for self-sufficient wilderness travellers who want undeveloped backcountry and remote mountain scenery. Vehicle-access camping is available at Ghost Lake Recreation Site, a small remote site with lake and mountain views near Matthew River Falls.
The park protects landscapes from alpine tundra and hanging alpine tarns to valley bottoms, wetland complexes, undeveloped watersheds, and old-growth forests. It also protects the complete Niagara Creek watershed, most of the Mitchell River watershed, Niagara Falls on Quesnel Lake, and critical habitat for mountain caribou, grizzly bears, bull trout, mountain goats, moose, salmonids, and waterfowl.
Activities are limited by remoteness. BC Parks lists canoeing and kayaking at Ghost Lake, cold-water swimming without a developed beach, fishing for sockeye, coho, chinook, kokanee, bull trout, and rainbow trout, hunting in season, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing without set trails.
Plan around Ghost Lake camping, remote paddling, Matthew River Falls scenery, wilderness fishing, old-growth forest and wetland observation, hunting in season, winter snowshoeing, and careful logging-road access.
Few facilities exist, and visitors should be experienced and self-sufficient. Bring or treat water, drive active logging roads cautiously, expect cold lakes and sudden weather, and note that horse routes may be overgrown or impassable.
