🏔️ Mount Castelnau | Long Miles, Retreating Ice, and a Remote Rockies Summit in Elk Lake P. P. скачать в хорошем качестве

🏔️ Mount Castelnau | Long Miles, Retreating Ice, and a Remote Rockies Summit in Elk Lake P. P.

🥾🚴‍♂️🧭🪨⚠️🌞🌌🧠 Before you watch this video, I might as well resolve an issue concerning a name that is sprinkled throughout in my dialog due to ignorance before the trip. 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. I didn't realize it before, but 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 replace "Pétain" with "Unnamed" in speaking and writing about the landscape features in the area named after Philippe. I apologize for not realizing it before the trip. Mount Castelnau isn’t a peak that draws attention on most lists. It lacks dramatic spires or technical cruxes, and its summit barely stands out from the surrounding icefields. What it offers instead is something subtler and rarer: a long, immersive journey through one of the most atmospheric corners of the southern Canadian Rockies, framed by glaciers, waterfalls, and enormous plateaus of stone and ice. This outing begins well before sunrise with a bike approach up the Elk Pass / Hydroline Trail, trading early effort for quiet miles and efficiency. The transition from wheels to boots near Lower Elk Lake marks the true start of the day, as excellent trails wind past misty lakeshores, forested slopes, and eventually into the steep grind of the Unnamed Basin Trail. The climb is relentless but rewarding, with views expanding rapidly as avalanche paths and scree gullies lift the route toward treeline. Above the basin, the scale of the terrain shifts dramatically. Multiple cliff bands, waterfalls, and glacial benches stack one above the other, forcing careful route-finding and constant elevation gains. The landscape feels both wild and fragile—streams carving fresh channels through moraine, ice shrinking back into shadowed bowls, and rubble shifting underfoot. Despite the distance already covered, the summit still feels far away. Glacier travel is unavoidable on Castelnau, but summer conditions make crevasses visible, trading one set of hazards for another. Hard ice, unstable moraine, and rockfall demand focus as the route angles upward toward the Castelnau–Ney col. From there, the character deteriorates into steep, exceptionally loose scree, where every step feels earned and patience becomes essential. A faint cairned trail—clearly built by previous humans, not goats—guides the final ascent to the summit. The top of Mount Castelnau is quiet, broad, and surprisingly visited—at least historically. A summit register tells the story of sporadic interest over decades. Views stretch across the Unnamed Glacier, Mount Joffre, Nivelle, Foch, Elkan, McCuaig, and countless other peaks rising from a shrinking sea of ice. A brief, exposed detour to a slightly higher eastern point confirms what the GPS later supports: even obscure summits can hide subtle surprises. The descent retraces the long route back through ice, basin, forest, and finally bike trail—fatigue softened by familiarity and a deep sense of having traveled far under one’s own power. 📷 Trip snapshots 📅 August 17, 2025 🕒 ~12.5 hours round-trip 📏 50 km total distance ⛰️ ~2,000 m elevation gain 🧗‍♂️ Scrambling SC5+ / Class 2–3 = ⚠️ Glacier travel, loose scree, very long day 📓 What this journey captures Why some peaks are memorable without being dramatic How distance reshapes effort and perspective The shifting hazards of summer glacier travel Why remote objectives reward patience over ambition The quiet satisfaction of long, self-powered days Mount Castelnau isn’t climbed for bragging rights or technical difficulty. It’s climbed for the journey itself—for moving steadily through layers of terrain, history, and changing landscapes. A peak that proves adventure doesn’t need sharp edges to leave a lasting impression. 📌 Route details, historical notes, distances, and written observations can be read in the original trip report at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yCsb....