Elaine Castle is a summit located in the Grand Canyon, in Coconino County of northern Arizona, US. It is situated three miles north-northwest of King Arthur Castle near the head of Shinumo Creek, and immediately southwest of Lancelot Point. Topographic relief is significant as it rises above Merlin Abyss in one mile. According to the Köppen climate classification system, Elaine Castle is located in a cold semi-arid climate zone.
History
Clarence Dutton started the tradition of naming geographical features in the Grand Canyon after mythological deities and heroic figures.Randy Moore and Kara Felicia Witt, The Grand Canyon: An Encyclopedia of Geography, History, and Culture, 2018, ABC-CLIO Publisher, page 151. Elaine Castle was named by cartographer Richard Tranter Evans (1881–1966), after Elaine of Astolat, from the Legend of King Arthur, in keeping with an Arthurian naming theme for other geographical features in the vicinity, e.g. King Arthur Castle, Guinevere Castle, Excalibur, Gawain Abyss, Holy Grail Temple, Bedivere Point, Lancelot Point, and Galahad Point.Gregory McNamee, Grand Canyon Place Names, 1997, Mountaineers Publisher, , page 50. This feature's name was officially adopted in 1908 by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names. Donald Davis climbed Elaine Castle on June 27, 1969, placing the first cairn on Elaine, but was not the first person there as he found evidence that Native Americans had been there.Aaron Tomasi, Pernell Tomasi, Grand Canyon Summits Select An Obscure Compilation of Sixty-nine Remote Ascent Routes in the Grand Canyon National Park Backcountry, 2001, , page 30.John Annerino, Hiking the Grand Canyon, 1993, Sierra Club Books, page 73. Harvey Butchart climbed it on August 9, 1969, finding the cairn that Davis had built.Harvey Butchart’s Hiking Log – Detailed Hiking Log (April 3, 1969 – September 3, 1969)
Geology
This butte is composed of a Permian Toroweap Formation caprock on cream-colored Permian Coconino Sandstone. This sandstone, which is the third-youngest stratum in the Grand Canyon, was deposited 265 million years ago as sand dunes. Below the Coconino Sandstone is reddish slope-forming, Permian Hermit Formation, which in turn overlays the Pennsylvanian-Permian Supai Group. Further down are strata of the cliff-forming Mississippian Redwall Limestone, and slope-forming Cambrian Tonto Group.N.H. Darton, Story of the Grand Canyon of Arizona, 1917. Elaine Castle owes its isolation to lines of fracture.Noble, L. F., The Shinumo Quadrangle, Grand Canyon District, Arizona, Bulletin 549, United States Geological Survey, Department of the Interior, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1914), page 79. Precipitation runoff from Elaine Castle drains south to the Colorado River via Shinumo Creek.
See also Geology of the Grand Canyon area
References
External links Elaine Castle photo Kaibab.org Elaine Castle with Holy Grail Temple photo at Kaibab.org Photo of Elaine Castle from Lancelot Point by Harvey Butchart Elaine Castle photo by Harvey Butchart Weather forecast: National Weather Service