Castelnau, Mount

Sometimes I’ll come across a trip from someone else and it gets my interest and makes me really want to do it myself. Mount Castelnau isn’t the sort of peak that stands out on most folks mountain lists. It isn’t particularly lofty. It isn’t a tough alpine objective. It isn’t even an engaging scramble. It does have a great approach however, and is surrounded by glaciers, promising incredible views and atmosphere. I think that’s the reason why, when Jake and Holly did it in 2023 I put it on my list and resolved to do it sooner than later.

First ascended in 1952 by Mr. and Mrs. G.A. Cunningham and J. More, Castelnau doesn’t scream out as a popular mountain. Sitting between the Unnamed and Castelnau Glaciers, Mount Castelnau and was named in 1918 after Noël Édouard, vicomte de Curières de Castelnau who was a French military officer and Chief of Staff of the French Armed Forces during WWI. The peak is surrounded by other WWI themed peaks such as McCuaig, Joffre, Unnamed 3183 and Nivelle.

Before I get any further into this trip report I might as well resolve an issue concerning a name that would otherwise be liberally sprinkled throughout. That name is Philippe Pétain after a WWI French field marshal who was hailed as a hero during WWI for leading his soldiers to victory in the 1916 Battle of Verdun. As a war hero, many features in the area SW of the Elk Lakes were named after Pétain in 1919 including a basin, a creek, a mountain and even a sizeable glacier.

Unfortunately, Pétain made some bad choices later in life and led the Vichy French government in German-occupied France, working closely with the Nazi administration during WWII.

What rightfully pissed Canadians off about this particular man was when he praised the Nazis for the 1942 Dieppe raid in which over 900 of our young men died. Too far dude. Way too far. Geoffrey and Duncan Taylor spent years lobbying various governments to drop this name from the maps and finally in 2022 the final obfuscations took place.

Most modern maps have now replaced “Pétain” with “Unnamed” since no appropriate moniker has been chosen (yet) to replace the previous one. To honor this demotion I will henceforth in this trip report, replace “Pétain” with “Unnamed”.

I always intended to day-trip Mount Castelnau, despite the big numbers involved. I’ve been into the Elk Lakes area a few times in the past, including snowshoe and hiking trips with the family and a bike ‘n hike to Unnamed Falls many years ago with my cousins. I also knew that the area has been fixed up since the 2013 floods severely messed up the trail between the lower and upper lakes and wiped out the Unnamed Creek Campground.

With good trails leading all the way to the upper glacial bowl I knew I could make good time for the bulk of the kilometers and elevation gains required to nab this remote summit. It would be a long day, but doable. With sunrise at around 06:30 nowadays, I woke up at 04:30 and was biking up the Elk Pass / Hydroline Trail by 06:29 under a slowly brightening sky.

Clouds were hanging low in the valleys as I sweated my way up the 275 vertical meters to the summit of Hydroline and into British Columbia. I knew I’d make good time with the subsequent 275m height loss into the Elk Lakes valley and indeed, I did! It was all good fun as I pedaled through a quiet parking lot, past a sleeping hut and towards the Lower Elk Lake Campground.

After bidding some early risers a “good morning” by the lake, I locked my bike to a nearby tree and prepared for the rest of my day. It had taken me less than an hour to complete the 11.5kms from the parking lot to the lower lake camp. A good start to the day.

Birds were chirping and clouds were slowly lifting over the Lower Elk Lake as I continued on foot from the bike drop on a great trail. Soon I was striding through deep forest, inhaling the scents of late summer and enjoying the place all to myself. I remembered that the trail along Upper Elk Lake was a little slower travel, and indeed it was. A narrow, winding track picks its way over roots and along the lakeshore providing incredible views and atmosphere. The clouds were still lingering over sheer cliff walls coming off Mount Fox, Elkan Station and Mount Elkan.

A bird was plunging into the calm waters of the lake in front of me, fishing for breakfast. I wasn’t going to enjoy “breakfast” until much, much later in my day (i.e., on my drive home) so I ignored any feelings of envy and snapped photos of the scenes around me instead.

Only 45 minutes from the bike drop I was approaching the south end of the Upper Elk Lake and within an hour I was smelling a morning campfire. I think the group standing around the fire was surprised to see me tramping up the trail at 08:20. They commented that I must have been up early and when I told them I’d left YYC that morning they were a little more surprised. We chatted briefly and as I turned to continue my day one of them recognized me from this blog. We shook hands and I bid them “adieu” before continuing at a brisk pace up the trail.

At the Coral Pass / Unnamed Falls junction I was more than happy to stay right on the main trail. I’ve heard rumors about the Coral Pass route and indeed, it didn’t look very inviting even from this end.

The trail deteriorated slightly after the junction but remained easy to follow through the decommissioned Unnamed Creek Campground and beyond.

Within 90 minutes of the bike drop I was already turning uphill off the Unnamed Falls Trail on the signed Unnamed Basin Trail. The key word to focus on here is “uphill”.

I remembered years ago when I did a weekend trip into the Elk Lakes cabin with my kids. We passed this junction on our way to the Unnamed Falls for a day trip. I wondered at the time what Unnamed Basin would be like, and here I was at least a dozen or more years later and I’d finally find out.

I was super excited for my day as I finally started gaining height towards my objective. It was a gorgeous morning too. We’ve had way too many soggy, cloudy days in the Rockies this summer. Sure! No forest fires but no views or fun approaches either. This day was promising pure summer Rockies adventure and I was a huge fan of it.

The trail up to Unnamed Basin was awesome. It was easy to follow as it led very steeply up a series of avalanche slopes and scree gullies all the way to tree line. Views back down the route towards Mount McCuaig and Aosta were absolutely stunning with swirling clouds, blue sky and rising sun. Fall scents were in the air as I marveled at the incredible atmosphere. I wasn’t even close to the glacier yet and the vibes were off-the-charts beautiful! This trip up to the basin is very highly recommended for folks who might not be comfortable with scrambling but are OK with tough hikes. You will not be disappointed on a day like I had.

After a short traverse out of a major avalanche gully (marked with cairns), the basin trail leveled out and traversed several slide paths at 2250m heading west. A short dip and easy scramble led finally into the Petain Basin and more sublime landscapes.

A waterfall gushed over a large curtainwall cliff and as I hiked towards it I spotted a tiny blue tent with a figure crouched nearby. I had to cross the upper Unnamed Creek and didn’t get near the tent. After ascending easy scree slopes to break the first cliff band (I found a great trail here) my views once again expanded.

The blue tent was even smaller in the huge terrain and from the top of the first curtain wall cliffs I spotted another set in between myself and my destination glacier. Another set of waterfalls plunged over this cliff — several sets in fact. Mount Foch, its many outliers, Unnamed 3183 and Mount Elkan ringed the huge basin. Streams and waterfalls plunged hundreds of feet over rocky cliffs and joined before plunging over the Unnamed Falls out of sight far below the plateau. I wandered an upper moraine to get better views towards Castelnau, McCuaig and De Gaulle whose east cliffs held dozens of massive waterfalls plunging off the Castelnau and Unnamed Glacier.

As distracting as the landscape was, I had to force myself to keep going. I knew that time would continue to erode at the daylight hours, especially from here to the summit and back.

Not only was the gorgeous landscape a huge distraction from efficient travel, the previously glaciated terrain wasn’t the quickest to navigate. Even with Jake and Holly’s GPS track, I had to constantly check it against what I was actually seeing in order for it to make sense.

Jake had indicated that I might find a more efficient line directly up some of the cliffs but I wasn’t in the mood for any such difficulties at this point of my day. I found an easy scramble route through the 2nd band before finding myself looking at yet another curtain wall cliff, this one directly under the Unnamed Glacier itself.

Once again, the easiest route was to traverse west towards Unnamed 3183’s impressive east face to get around the cliffs. As I hiked along the glacial flats the dramatic views of the icefield continued to open up. Clouds hung over the old, rock strewn ice and the peaks rising from the sea of white were dark and somewhat foreboding. As I knew from previous experience — even this year on the much smaller Beatty Glacier, there can be complications hiking Rockies glaciers in summertime. The obvious issue with soloing a glacier is crevasses, but this is the one thing that is much easier in summer. Since the snow has melted off the surface, the crevasses and ‘shrunds are visible.

The issue in summer is that bare glacial ice can be very hard and very “icy” — obviously! Slipping in the wrong place can be very serious. Other issues with summer glaciers in the Rockies is traveling unstable moraines alongside the ice and hidden, unstable ice under rubble. Rockfall is another serious hazard around glaciers when things warm up. So, given all the hazards, why was I soloing Unnamed Glacier today? I have significant experience with glaciers both in summer and winter and wasn’t too concerned about this particular one.

A week later I would underestimate another dying Rockies glacier but thankfully in that case I could avoid it. YMMV, you have to decide for yourself what you are comfortable doing or avoiding. I wanted to go left around a large meltwater pond at the base of the glacier, but Holly and Jake had gone right so I followed their route on approach. Hint: go left.

As I walked over rubble beside the ice sheet below, I suddenly realized that I was also on ice here! I hate being on rubble with ice underneath since there’s no way to know how thick or how stable that ice is. I descended quickly to the glacier proper and started out across it, angling left and up towards a still distant Castelnau.

I had icers along instead of full-on crampons since they’re easier to walk on with runners. I was wearing my Arc’teryx Sylan Pro’s — my new favorite shoe for hiking and scrambling. So far I didn’t need them and as I started up an interesting sidewalk of embedded rocks in the glacier, I had plenty of grip. Slowly I inched my way up and across the ice sheet, enjoying the cool air until it was a little too cold under the clouds that refused to disband overhead, despite blue skies everywhere else.

I enjoyed the dramatic scenery of Mount Joffre’s NE face and Unnamed 3183’s sheer east walls towering beside me as I hiked. Water ran underfoot, constantly reminding me that this ice won’t last long in geologic terms. Mount Castelnau and Ney (unofficial) looked dark and foreboding as I approached on steepening ice, over deepening cracks.

Eventually the glacier was steep enough to warrant the icers which worked well with my runners. I quickly ascended to the Castelnau / Ney col, avoiding some pretty big holes and cracks along the way. I always managed to find a way around or over them, but as I got close to Castelnau’s horribly loose looking NW scree face I encountered a large crack that took some fussing to get over.

In the end I managed to make a giant, somewhat exposed step of faith across the gap. I really didn’t want to slip here and thankfully, I did not. I continued to the scree face before starting up gingerly, keeping the icers on for added security.

Icers on scree? Yup. The scree and rubble on the NW face of Castelnau was horrible. Absolutely awful stuff! The worst part was that there was ice lingering under some of it, promoting huge sloughs that I worried might carry me all the way into a large ‘shrund below me. Yikes. I tip-toed my way delicately up and over the rubble until I stumbled on what I first thought was a goat trail. Quickly I realized the trail was human since goats don’t build cairns as far as I know. Yes, there was a very obvious human built cairn and trail embedded in the rubble slopes leading up to the summit of this obscure peak.

As I completed my stumble ‘n bumble to the tippy top I was happy to spot a metal tube in the rock cairn marking the summit. It was tough to open but I managed to pry it off and was quite surprised to find several dozen entries in the document contained within.

Wow. This hard-to-access, remote peak was way more popular than I expected it to be! When I looked at the entries however, I noted that despite another entry in 2025 there was only one other entry since 2008. For some reason only 3 of us had signed the register over the past 17 years but before that, it was a surprisingly busy little place. Here’s the funny part though. There is a very small chance that most of the folks claiming the highest point on Castelnau, might have missed it by several inches. Or maybe even feet.

The views from the summit were stunning, especially over the Castelnau and Unnamed Glacier to the aforementioned peaks including Aosta, Nivelle, De Gaulle, Ney, Joffre, Unnamed 3183 and Mount Foch and Elcan Peak.

As I gazed over the sea of peaks and land of ice and water, I realized that I might get slightly better views from what looked like a similarly high summit just NE of the cairn. At first I thought it was just a stroll along a tight ridge to get there, but soon it deteriorated into a very loose, very exposed, very difficult scramble. Arg. Was it really worth risking life and limb for a potentially similar view to the current one? No, but I’m stubborn and stupid and was half way there before it became obvious just how stupid, so I continued anyway. The views were indeed very similar but interestingly when I looked back at the cairn sitting at the western summit, it now looked lower. Hmmm. When I got home I realized the highest point recorded on my GPS was indeed the one I traversed to. Hmmm indeed.

A few more photos from the cairn and I started the long return. I was 6.5 hours into my day — quite a bit quicker than I expected if I’m honest. I was expecting at least a 14-hour day but now it looked like it would be between 12 and 13 depending how distracted I got on return. After descending the horrid rubble back to the ice, I continued downhill, aiming for skier’s right of the toe far below. At this point my poor icers finally broke (I’ve put 100’s of laps on them on Prairie Mountain). Thankfully reversing the broken one seemed to hold up fine and I could continue my descent with good grip on the ice.

I was hoping to take a line around the east side of the meltwater lake at the toe of the glacier instead of the west side on exit. This worked excellently. My camera stayed warm as I took in the wild scenery in every direction, reluctantly starting slowly back over the various plateaus to the approach trail far below.

Sometimes I wonder why I love these long day trips so much, but then I’m reminded on days like this one just how far someone with a bit of energy, fitness and determination can travel in a reasonably paced day. Experiencing all the landscapes that I did over a 10-12 hour period is extraordinary. Being able to do it house-to-house provides an even better sense of our incredible backyard. Sure! The wilderness is remote in a certain sense, but it’s also remarkably accessible.

Finally I found myself back on top of the final headwall leading to the bivy site far below. I couldn’t resist another photo of the huge lower falls, plunging into a rainbow just above the bivy which was now abandoned. I had this special place all to myself as I slowly descended the faint trail in scree.

I crossed the Unnamed Creek and spent a few minutes in the lower plateau. A cool wind blew over the basin and a few friendly little birds flitted their way around my little perch as I thought about where I was and how perfect the moment I was in captured exactly why I do what I do for fun.

Time was ticking on and I still had a long exit, so I turned my back on the basin and picked my way through cairns and ledges back to the Unnamed Basin Trail. Following the steep descent back down to the valley floor was quick and easy — although my knees complained a little here!

The walk back to the bike was remarkably silent and lonely — but in a good way. I knew there were people somewhere, but they weren’t on the trail as I walked kilometer after kilometer back to the Upper Elk Lake and then around it back to the Lower Lake.

If I was at all concerned about my energy levels for the 11.5 kilometer, 275 meter gain bike ride back over Elk Pass, I was quickly assured that as usual the ride would invigorate rather than exhaust me. For some reason the bike almost always gives me a little boost of energy after a long walk. I think it’s the fact that I go much quicker all of a sudden — even uphill — then I’ve been traveling for hour after hour on foot. Whatever it is, I’ll take it! The ascent wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting and soon I was flying downhill towards the Kananaskis Lakes and Elk Pass parking lot in fading light.

What a day. I will not soon forget it and want to thank Jake and Holly for inspiring what will definitely be a highlight of summer 2025.