"The Muffin", "The Croissant" & "Bakery Peak"

After a wonderful day out in a very snowy section of the Alberta Rockies on Mount Noyes, South, it was time for some real spring trekking the very next day. With a wet start to the hiking and scrambling year in 2026, beggars couldn’t be choosers on any day with a forecast that included sun.

Despite swearing that I would never get sucked into scrambling silly front range peaks such as “The Muffin”, “The Croissant”, & “Bakery Peak” I found myself driving 2.5 hours to the Spionkop Creek trailhead on a beautiful sunny morning in late June to do just that!

I first heard about “peaks” like “Eaglet”, “Raptor”, “Croissant”, “Bakery” and many others from perusing Andrew Nugara’s trip log. He makes zero apologies for these ridiculous “summit” names (made in conjunction and heavily influenced by Dave McMurray) - something I can respect.

Of course, nobody actually thinks we’re bagging meaningful, distinct mountains here, but by the same token, nobody cares either! It’s all about enjoying the wonderful Castle Wilderness landscapes including colorful rock, rushing streams, lush meadows and spectacular cliffs.

In today’s world of social media brags and Strava stats, I find it particularly amusing that by giving so many random high points these pointless and meaningless names, Andy and Dave are feeding the beast by artificially boosting our mountain stats. I think they’re doing this on purpose - all very tongue in cheek. I’m becoming a fan. 😀

The truly hilarious part is that there are so many unofficially named high points from this group, all running somewhere along Loaf Mountain’s NE ridge that I didn’t even realize that I wasn’t even scrambling a true high point on today’s outing. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Dave has a great description to the trailhead on his site but there’s a more direct way that I took on exit. Rather than drive a convoluted, lengthy route past the Shell Waterton Complex on Hwy 43A, I’d recommend a route down Spread Eagle Road slightly further south down Hwy #6 before cutting directly towards Spread Eagle Mountain. From this road follow a series of wellsite roads to the Spionkop Creek trailhead and park near (don’t block) an obvious gate. My first hour or so was obvious from the parking area. Despite appearances, I ended up on a short bushwhack and then knee high vegetation up the east slopes of “The Muffin”.

It was a gorgeous day. ☀️I was very happy to be on snow free slopes despite the fun I’d had the day before, spending half of it on crampons.

As I worked my way up the NE ridge of “The Muffin”, the slope steepened considerably underfoot. Drywood Mountain to the north and “Eaglet” and “Raptor” to the south kept my camera warm, as did the numerous wildflowers blooming in the lush grasses.

The sun was very warm and the air was a nice summer humid, I didn’t need my jacket right from the truck. The one downside of the humidity and warmth were the amount of bugs. I was reminded of my experience a few weeks previous, with pesky mosquitoes taking advantage of any exposed flesh. 🦟

Just as I thought the slopes couldn’t get much steeper, they of course, did. My approach shoes worked well enough but arguably boots would have slipped around a little less on the steep dirt and vegetation. My hiking poles came in very handy here.

Before long I was at the first non-summit summit of the day. The views were fantastic in every direction.

From “The Muffin” it was a short, pleasant hike to the next non-summit summit of the day in warm sunshine and moderate winds.

As I hiked I was reminded why I love the Castle Wilderness so much. The colors popping out of the landscape were a pleasure to behold.

Views from the summit of “The Croissant” to “Bakery Peak” showed that there might actually be more than just hiking in my immediate future and I was excited to do some scrambling on this gorgeous day. The first part of the ascent up “Bakery Peak” was easy hiking and scrambling but soon I started encountering small cliff bands along the way.

Every time the terrain proved problematic, I could avoid serious exposure by breaking cliffs to climber’s right. As I kept going I wondered if maybe I should have read Andy and Dave’s trip reports a little more carefully beforehand. This isn’t the first time that a casual reading and assumptions regarding a trip have resulted in some personal confusion. 😀

The GPS track I had clearly deviated climber’s left around a particularly steep (SC7) section on the east ridge but I was now in the mood for steep rock and scrambled right up the nose. I was glad that I had an easier back down it though.

As I approached what I assumed was the summit block I noticed a beautiful valley down to my right (north) that Andy and Dave used to approach “Ciabatta and the Breadsticks”.

Continuing up the ridge towards the summit block I had to gulp a few times. The terrain was starting to look very intense, especially considering that I wasn’t expecting anything more than moderate. I had to admit at this point that next time I’ll pay more attention to a trip report before making assumptions that since the peaks are silly front range non-peaks, they won’t necessarily be easy.

Thankfully the cliff under the “summit” wasn’t quite as intense as it first appeared - likely the high end of moderate once I sussed out the easiest line. This is where I really didn’t read the reports closely enough. After the steep ascent, I traversed easier terrain to another highpoint before arriving at a massively exposed sidewalk feature leading to more difficult looking rock.

Since I hadn’t read the trip report carefully enough, I assumed that the terrain ahead must be in the realm of scrambling and scampered across some horribly exposed and somewhat loose terrain before arriving at an even more exposed, slanted down climb.

It was at this point that I realized I still had LTE service and should maybe re-read Andy’s trip report a little more carefully. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the down climb, but it did seem quite exposed and difficult and the terrain ahead didn’t look any easier. Sure enough! After loading up Andy’s report I quickly realized that I was already past “Bakery Peak” which turned out to be a random high point, not even the highest point of the east ridge of Loaf Mountain. The highest point of the east ridge was called “Icing on the Loaf” or “Frosting Peak” by Andy and Dave and was correctly termed “5th class” by them.

I returned to the “summit” and spent a few moments enjoying the views before wandering back down my approach.

I had already decided on my ascent of the east ridge of Loaf that I would be exiting south to the Spionkop Road for my exit. There were a few potential lines that would work, but I chose to follow a track I’d seen on Gaia that avoided as much bush and cliffs as possible.

After a nice encounter with a Mountain Bluebird (Sialia currucoides) and a curious deer who seemed somewhat confused by my presence, I continued down the slope towards some thick looking, stunted trees just before the Spionkop Road below.

Thankfully the trees weren’t quite as bad as they first appeared. I even managed to find smatterings of a trail near a gas site just off the road.

The last half hour was spent walking in glorious sunshine on the Spionkop Road back to the parking area under a brilliant blue sky with white, puffy clouds floating lazily overhead.

Despite swearing I’d never bother hiking front range bumps such as “Muffin”, “Croissant” and “Bakery”, I not only ended up enjoying my day out but I find myself planning more days in the area. Dang it.