Castle Mountain – Stuart Knob – Television Peak – Helen Peak
August 15-16th, 2018. Banff National Park
Round Trip: 2 days, Elevation Gain: +1400m
Easy Scramble – Moderate Scramble for Stuart’s Knob
Scott & I teamed up with our good friend Mike for this multi-day traverse. The original plan was to full complete the traverse by bagging Protection Mountain, Armor Peak and Pulsatilla Mt. Due to various factors, namely the poor air qaulity, we settled with the initial four peaks listed in Kane’s (2016) Scrambles: Castle Mountain Summit, Stuart Knob, Television Peak 2900m, and Helen Peak.
Follow the well maintained Parks trail to Rockbound Lake. It’s around 8km to the first lake and this will be the easiest part of the day. Once at the shoreline of Rockbound Lake a very obvious scree slope will be accessible on the looker’s right hand side of the lake. A well traveled trail follows up the slope. From here a well cairned route leads you up and over a dark grey scree hill to the plateau that sits above the lake. In hind-sight this would have ideally been the time to scree slog up Helen Peak. Instead we saved Helen for the return trip and went straight for Castle summit first.
Once above the lake, it’s pretty straight forward to loop around the cliff bands above Rockbound Lake towards Castle summit. Numerous cairns indicate the way. For those interested in geology, there are several areas that will surely be of interest along the way.
The trek across the plateau is pretty straight forward in gaining Castle Summit. There are no real technical difficulties. There are several other “high points” that you can scramble up along the ridge leading to the summit depending on how much time and energy you have. We went directly for the summit.
We reached the summit and could barely see the route we took in due to the smoke. It was a great feeling to get our first summit of the trip, but it also dawned on us that there was still a long haul ahead. The goal was to get as far as Stuart Knob and possibly Television Peak. It has certainly been done before in a single day according to the summit register.
Rather than stay true to the ridge, we retraced the commonly used foot path back to the plateau and then followed this straight back to the slopes under Stuart’s Knob. While straight forward, it was longer than it seemed in the mid-august heat. Lots of small nat-lie flies, but fortunately they weren’t biting too much.
One thing worth noting is the lack of water up on the plateau. Unless you are carrying in enough water for the full day, Rockbound Lake is your last true spot to fill up. There are no streams, and in August no melt waters to fill up from. It wasn’t until just below the slopes of Stuart’s Knob that we came across a cool puddle of apparent spring water. Mike was relying on a Life Straw bottle and gleefully refilled it at this spring.
The slog up Stuart’s Knob was grueling compared to the gradual height gain of Castle summit. At the back of the plateau the grade steepens and the trek turns into a steep shale slog. This was the most taxing part of the day, no thanks to the poor air quality. Mike was quite gassed at this point, so while having a breather on the ridge Scott and I went for the summit bid of Stuart’s Knob. It was straight forward enough and offered a few moderate hands-on scrambling moves.
From the ridge you continue around to the climber’s right to access Stuart Knob’s summit block (very well cairned). Alternatively, if you go left, there appears to be an unnamed peak that is part of Castle mountain. We stuck with Stuart’s Knob on this trip. For those aiming for a fuller traverse, you have to pass under Stuart’s Knob to access Television Peak anyway, so you might as well spend the extra 15-20 minutes to bag the peak while here.
After taking in the stellar views and making note of a crucial time check, we decided that our intended bivy point above Wonder Valley (i.e. northeast of Television Peak) was beyond our reach that day. We would continue as far as possible with the remaining daylight.
Fortunately for our party we were only faced with an easy trek for the remainder of the day. The ridge line connecting Stuart’s Knob to Television Peak seemed endlessly long, and we decided to aim for a high point along the ridge. On the north side of this bump there was a faint but distinct snow patch. This was our water source for the night and we set up our bivy site near by.
While quite warm we could feel the temperature dropping and wasted no time with a semi-sheltered bivy site to block the wind. The smoke cleared to a starry evening and we were woken in the night by bats! Lots of snoring that night.
The next day we melted water from the thin snow pack near by, had a quick oatmeal brekky, left the sleeping gear behind and made our trek across for Television peak. We were still over an hour away from the summit of Television Peak from our bivy site, albeit we took several photo breaks along the way. In addition to the fascinating rock formations, the thick smoke gave the landscape an eerie other-world effect to the landscape. Especially at sunrise.
Towards the end of the ridge, we had to descend to the looker’s left (west) side to gain the lower slope of Television Peak. This route took us through yet even more interesting rock formations – the block-like shapes reminded us of ancient Mayan pyramids. An almost man-made look…
The scramble itself up Television Peak is relatively easy. From the ridge, you descend into the saddle and up the blocky slope. Through here there are a few hands on moves but still within the realm of easy scrambling. Above the block like boulders the slope mellows out into a typical shale scree slope, from here its a mere trek to the top.
We were surprised to see the amount of snow still clinging to the ridge leading to the summit. Even more surprised to see the grey ice of a glacier underneath the northern slope! Sure it was small in present tense, but nevertheless a pleasant surprise. Naturally the modern topographical maps do not mark this glacier as it was only a few dozen metres wide at most.
From here we definitively decided to abandon our attempt at a full traverse to Armor and Pulsatilla. While it was doable in the sense that we were packed for 3 days of trekking and the next 2 peaks were within view, the air quality had taken its toll the first day. It would still take us the full day to trek out of Rockbound Lake. But the trip doesn’t end there! Mike was keen to summit Stuart Knob on the way back, and we as a team were still eager to get Helen Peak on the trek out.
Our traverse back was slow but steady. As a full team we summited Stuart Knob on the way. While resting on the summit we had a decision to make. Either traverse along the ridge below us across to Helen Peak or take the safe known route back across the plateau to the saddle above Rockbound Lake. The unknown for us was that Helen’s summit block looked a bit intimidating from Stuart’s Knob and would likely involve a bit of route finding to link up with the standard scrambling route. We opted for the plateau. While straight forward, staying up on the ridge would have in hindsight saved us time.
Once at the base of the slope leading up Helen’s Peak, Mike tapped out and agreed to wait for myself and Scott back at Rockbound Lake. Scott and I hurried up the slope of rotten and ancient scree. Given that we didn’t bring helmets, we abandoned the slope by detouring to the climber’s left. In doing so we ended up into some moderate scrambling terrain – while non technical it was VERY steep. Once above this shoulder, it only took us ten minutes or so to link back up with the standard (and well cairned) scrambling route.
We were pretty happy with obtaining the summit here. A large nearly 2m high Inukshuk has been erected slightly off from the summit, likely a memorial of sorts. We took a few photos before descending back to the trekking trail. We had to watch our step as to not kick stones out below – a solo hiker had followed us up the ascent slope of Helen Peak. It was nearly 9km back to the car from here and thus made for a long return. Absolutely worth doing but in no rush to repeat this trip.
Steep Sheep 