Mount St. Piran

Elevation: 2649 m
Elevation Gain: 900 m
Willoughby John Astley hailed from Cornwall in Ireland and was the first manager of the chalet at Lake Louise. Samuel E. S. Allen named Mount St. Piran in 1894 for St. Piran, the patron saint of Astley’s home. St. Piran became the patron saint of tin-miners in the Cornwall area after rediscovering the lost art of tin-smelting in the sixth century when his hearthstone smelted itself and the tin rose to the top of the stone forming a white cross. Although Mount St. Piran is a trivial climb, many of history’s finest mountaineers, including Edward Whymper and Georgia Engelhard, have marveled at the fine view offered from its summit.
My Ascents:
October 8 2023, September 22 2013, July 1 2013, July 15 2012, August 1 2011, July 4 2010, September 25 2008
Trailhead: Lake Louise Parking Lot or Lake Louise Shuttle Park-and-Ride
GPS Track: Mount St. Piran

All summer long, I’ve wanted to attempt a “real” mountain with our kids. Sure, we get out on plenty of hikes and have enjoyed some great “kiddy” peaks, but I’ve been nagged by the sense that our big girls (7-year-old Mera and 6-year-old Penny) are capable of more in the mountains. Meanwhile, 1-year-old Lillian enjoys her hiking backpack and is, for now, light enough to carry on reasonably large outings. If we were going to get after a bigger mountain as a family, 2023 seemed like an ideal time to do so…

To that end, the idea of attempting Mount St. Piran with our kids crossed my mind earlier this summer. 🤔💡 St. Piran is a beautiful peak with a well-graded trail 90% of the way to its apex, and I reasoned that its requisite distance (15 km return) and elevation gain (900 m) would be a manageable challenge for our little girls (and us)!

Finding the time in our schedules to give it a go, however, proved to be our greatest challenge. June came and June went. July gave way to August and August to September. As we flipped the calendar over to October, it seemed improbable that family-friendly conditions would persist atop a peak so close to the continental divide. Our fears were realized when local ski hills posted photos of snow accumulating at elevation. ❄️ Indeed, the odds of making our 2023 family trip up St. Piran looked bleak. 😔 Still, I kept a keen eye on the forecast and hoped for the best. 🤞

To my great surprise (and delight), the late September/early October snowfall was followed by an extended high-pressure system, which brought clear skies and unseasonably warm weather back to the Rockies. As Thanksgiving 🦃 approached, I watched with glee 😁 as the peaks to the west shed their snowy caps. With forecast highs in the mid-20s, it felt like summer once more and we decided to treat it as such by making our better-late-than-never family attempt on St. Piran! 🌞

These days, getting a spot in the crowded Lake Louise parking lot is actually the most challenging aspect of attempting Mount St. Piran. Sure, Parks Canada’s shuttles from the nearby ski hill work, but they add about 1 hour to trips and, with kids, St. Piran figured to be long enough on its own. To improve our odds of being in the parking lot early enough to secure a coveted spot, we therefore decided to make St. Piran part of our final camping trip of the year, and found a spot in the Lake Louise campground the night before our attempt. ⛺

This is how early you need to wake up if you want to park at Lake Louise these days… 😝 In all seriousness, this photo was actually taken the night prior as we sat around our campfire and enjoyed a spectacular evening of stargazing 🤩 (away from the bright lights of the city).

While we didn’t exactly wake up in the middle of the night, we didn’t sleep in either. After setting our alarms for 7:00 am, ⏰ we hurriedly fed and dressed our kids, packed our bags and met Grandpa Gord (who made a last-minute decision to join us and drove out from Calgary at 5:30 am). Carpooling up to the already-busy Lake parking lot, we arrived at 8:20 am and scored one of the final spots available. As someone who has been coming to Lake Louise my entire life, it still boggles my mind how stressful and unpleasant the experience of parking here has become! Still, we got a spot and were extremely excited to set off towards our objective (dead center in the photo above) under a brilliant blue, crisp, clear sky! 😀

LEFT: Of course, before we started we had to fight one of Parks Canada’s machines for the privilege of paying to park (after already paying our park entrance fees). You’d think they could at least afford to keep these damned machines running for $21 per parking spot! 🤬
RIGHT: After throwing a bit more of our money away to Parks Canada, we started our day with a cold (-2 C) morning stroll around magnificent Lake Louise. At 8:30 am on a Sunday in October, the crowds were manageable, and we didn’t even have to elbow any tourists into the lake to get this family photo. 😏 Photo: Gord Hobbs (aka: Grandpa)

The sight they all come to see: Glacier-capped Mount Victoria reflected in Lake Louise’s perfectly blue waters. 😍 While it is spectacular, you can see the same thing online if you're one of the many visitors who don’t intend to do anything but scroll your phone along the shoreline anyways. 🙄

LEFT: Leaving the lakeshore behind, we dove headfirst into a non-descript forest, following the road-like trail up towards Lake Agnes. At this point, we were less than 1-km into our day and 6-year-old Penny already looked very unimpressed… 😬😑
RIGHT: Fortunately, I had anticipated this possibility and devised a genius CME (child-motivation-enhancer): a baggie of 50 Halloween candies. 🍬🍫🤣 After being informed that she would collect a new chocolate for every kilometer that she hiked, Penny was unstoppable! 💪

LEFT: After 3 – 4 chocolate treats, we reached the day’s second scenic highlight: aptly named Mirror Lake (complete with impressive reflection of the Big Beehive). Since children cannot survive on candy alone, we decided to stop here for a quick snack break in the cool morning shade.
RIGHT: Not an ideal thing to eat your snack next to… Seriously, why do people need to be SO gross? Who leaves a soiled diaper 💩 on the ground next to a beautiful mountain lake?

After holding our noses and eating our snacks, we started off anew and followed the Lake Agnes trail up into the sunshine before turning off onto the less-travelled Little Beehive trail.

LEFT: Before reaching the Little Beehive, we turned off the main trail onto a smaller, signed trail for Mount St. Piran.
RIGHT: Hiking up the much narrower path, Mera and Penny were very excited to run into the day’s first snow patch. In fact, they were so excited by the white stuff that they forgot to ask for the chocolate that they were entitled to. 😂 Meanwhile, I found myself similarly delighted as the surrounding forest transitioned from everyday evergreen to golden, glowing larch trees!

As we began to leave the forest behind, we were confronted by St. Piran’s steep upper slopes. From here, the summit towered 300-vertical-meters above us, despite being only 500-horizontal meters to the west. Mercifully, the trail up these slopes switch-backed nicely, allowing us to gain the required elevation over a 2-km distance instead of having to go straight up! Even so, we expected that this might be where things started to go (metaphorically) sideways with our kids…

LEFT: Fortunately, the point on St. Piran where the going begins to get tough corresponds with the point where the scenery takes its game to the next level. See for instance, the icy north faces of Haddo Peak and Mount Aberdeen beyond a glowing grove of larch trees.
RIGHT: Despite being concerned about how our kids would do, 7-year-old Mera continued to race happily ahead of us, stopping only to holler back that this hike was “too easy!” 😊

Even her younger sister, 6-year-old Penny, outpaced us as the switchbacks delivered us higher and higher above the Bow Valley. While Penny had struggled to get going on the dull Lake Agnes trail, she was fully engaged by the more challenging path higher up and even stopped asking if she was due for another chocolate yet! 🍫 Photo: Gord Hobbs (aka: Grandpa)

Family hiking doesn’t get any more idyllic than this! Photo: Gord Hobbs (aka: Grandpa)

While big sisters Mera and Penny (left) got most of the hiking accolades on this day, little Lillian (right) was also a rockstar in her hiking backpack. No crying from any of my amazing girls!

LEFT: After countless scenic switchbacks, the trail intersected with St. Piran’s much snowier north ridge 100-vertical-meters below its summit.
RIGHT: Fortunately, the more southerly side of this ridge was still, largely, snow-free.

Miss Penny enjoys some increasingly scenic “hands-on” scrambling, and guided her Mom and Grandpa as the terrain got rockier below the summit.

Yours truly leading his girls through Mount St. Piran’s sub-summit boulder field on an unbelievably beautiful October afternoon! Photo: Gord Hobbs (aka: Grandpa)

LEFT and RIGHT: We did it! We did it! We did it! Yay! Lo hicimos! We did it! Upon cresting the peak’s final rise, Mera and Penny strode excitedly ahead of us to lay claim their biggest summit yet, while Lillian readied herself for some overdue free time out of her carrier.

A “real” mountain summit panorama for my amazing little hikers to enjoy! Click to see larger.

LEFT: There are “real” mountains and then there are REAL mountains. Fortunately, St. Piran has amazing views of many of the latter, including massive Mount Lefroy to the southwest.
RIGHT: Mom supervises Lilly’s “playtime” under the watchful eyes of Mounts Whyte (left) and Niblock (right).

Panoramic views over the broad Bow Valley to the north. Click to see larger.

Looking northwest towards the host of glaciated peaks that run up and down the spine of the continent. On the left, the President and the Vice President stand tall, while ice-capped Mounts McArthur and Mummery are visible at center right and right, respectively.

Mount Bosworth (left), Mount Daly (center) and Waputik Peak (right) stand tall around the latter’s namesake icefield.

LEFT: Immediately to the north, minute Minewakun Lake adds a splash of sapphire blue to the otherwise evergreen Bow Valley while 11,000er Mount Hector punctuates the horizon with its Snoopy-shaped summit.
RIGHT: To the northeast, snow-capped Cataract Peak presides over Banff National Park’s more remote eastern ranges.

A host of scramble-able peaks in Skoki and beyond. From left to right: “the Sectional”, Cyclone Mountain, Merlin Ridge, Mount Drummond, Pipestone Mountain, Mount Richardson, Pika Peak, Richardson Ridge, and Ptarmigan Peak.

Views east over the hamlet of Lake Louise towards the ski hill-scarred slopes of Whitehorn.

… And saving the best for last: the magnificently colorful panorama to the south, highlighted by a half-dozen glaciers and the vibrant turquoise lakes that form from their meltwater. 😍
Click to see larger.

LEFT: Lake Louise, Mirror Lake and Lake Agnes show off their distinctive blue colors amongst the golden larch and evergreen forests below, while snowcapped peaks (Fairview Mountain, the Big Beehive, Sheol Mountain and massive Mount Temple) compete for the beholder’s attention above. Simply put, “WOW.”
RIGHT: The only eyesore visible from Mount St. Piran: the gaudy Chateau Lake Louise and its overcrowded lakeshore path. 😣

A closer look at the three lakes to the south and their distinct colors, which result from their different degrees of loading with glacial sediments, silt and rock flour.

“Real” mountain views capable of taking your breath away. From left to right: Mount Temple, Haddo Peak, Mount Aberdeen, the Devil’s Thumb (foreground), the Mitre, Mount Lefroy and Mount Victoria’s southeast ridge. Once again, a simple “WOW” suffices. Photo: Gord Hobbs (aka: Grandpa)

LEFT: While I amused myself taking photos and Brianne nursed Lillian, our “big girls” hid out in St. Piran’s impressive summit-top windbreak. This became their de facto summit fort. In it, they spent their time amassing an impressive arsenal of monstrous snowballs, which they would proceed to unleash upon their unsuspecting parents and Grandpa with equal parts fury and delight. 😈 As the 10-lb snowballs rained down upon us, Brianne was not impressed… 😡
RIGHT: After Brianne’s snowball-induced “cold-ing” 🥶 and Mera and Penny’s subsequent scolding, 😬 a peace agreement was reached. This was followed by celebratory Halloween candy and a commemorative photo to document the St. Piran accords. All’s well that ends well! 😂 Photo: Gord Hobbs (aka: Grandpa)

My girls and I with Grandpa atop St. Piran. Mera and Penny were on the receiving end of a lot of praise for summiting a “real” mountain, but the old man’s 👴 feat of making it up at the age of 75 was not insignificant – and we didn’t even need to bribe him with chocolate! 🍫😂 We’re very lucky to be able to share amazing adventures like this among 3 generations in our family! ❤️

The conditions atop St. Piran on this day were I-D-E-A-L. T-shirt weather in mid-October at 2,649-m elevation! ☀️ I actually tried to put on a thin jacket (out of habit) at one point but had to remove it because I quickly overheated! 🤯 As a result, we enjoyed over an hour atop St. Piran before reluctantly deciding to start the 7.5-km hike down. Photo: Gord Hobbs (aka: Grandpa)

LEFT and RIGHT: Mera, Penny, Brianne (and Lillian) capably negotiated the upper mountain’s rockier terrain on descent. Amazingly, Mera required zero assistance and Penny only needed to hold my hand here and there. This was especially impressive considering that the view unfolding below us had me tripping over my own feet from time to time! 😂

Eventually, the scenic boulders gave way to scenic switchbacks down St. Piran’s steep alpine slopes, and these, in turn, eventually yielded to a scenic mixture of colorful larch trees and plucky krummholz. The common theme? The views were okay on descent. 🙃

Enjoying an absolutely perfect fall afternoon in the Rockies! 😍

LEFT: Following a winding carpet of yellow larch needles down into a magnificent subalpine forest.

RIGHT: Eventually, we were reunited with the main Lake Agnes trail and a familiar/dull plod down ensued. While Miss Penny chatted my ears off, and Lillian cooed softly from her pack perch, Brianne and Mera’s full bladders saw them redouble their pace to get down to the ladies’ room 🚽 below. Fortunately, their separation from us was of little consequence since we had a plan to meet them outside of the upper parking lot’s bathrooms (once they were done their business and we were done our hike). So long as everyone involved had the “common sense” to stick to this plan, the final stage of our hike down would have been completely uneventful…

Of course, “common sense” isn’t as common as you’d think and, as a result, our wonderful hike concluded with Penny, Lilly and I waiting for 25-minutes outside the ladies room, while Brianne and Mera waited for an equally long time at our car (which I had the keys to). 🤦‍♂️ To make matters worse, we’d been switching packs to share the load that is Lilly and, as a result, my pack had Brianne’s cell phone in it. Fortunately, Grandpa eventually checked both spots and was able to relay our relative locations to each of us, leading to a tense reunion. 😠 All together once more, we piled into our vehicle and carpooled back down to the campground, where we planned to spend another night.

Eventually, Brianne and I “agreed to disagree” RE: who had been at fault for the great St. Piran potty fiasco of 2023, 🚽 and we made up over beverages 🍻 around our final campfire 🔥 of the season. As we watched the flames flicker and felt the contrast between the freezing fall air and the fire’s heat, we reflected on our near-perfect “summer” day (in mid-October)! 🤯🙌

A day filled with glacier-capped peaks and turquoise lakes; golden sunshine and amber larch trees; a day On Top of Mera and Penny’s first “real” mountain, and, most of all, another amazing family adventure shared by 3 generations. 🥰 WOW.