Tent Ridge Horseshoe
Completed when dry, likely possible with a significant amount of snow (ideally not full blown winter, watch out for avalanche terrain, there is a lot). Best advice for this one is just don’t bring your grandma up here. Other than that, all able bodied individuals should be able to make it (although slowly) through the scrambling. There are three main scrambling sections, each with some significant exposure. The rest of the ridge is mostly a walk on a well defined trail, but there are many less significant and smaller scrambling sections. This trail can also be quite busy, although it is definitely not the busiest in the Rockies.
Tent Ridge is a beautiful horseshoe shaped ridge, located just south of the Spray Reservoir and right around the halfway point of the Spray Lakes Road. It was named simply because it looks like a tent. Very descriptive, very on point. Once upon a time, there were also plans for a ski resort on the mountain, but those plans thankfully never came to fruition. Now, many people get the chance to enjoy a beautiful hike or scramble that spends the majority of its time above the treeline. Some even claim that Tent Ridge is the hike with the best 360 views in the Rockies, although that may be debated, but I guess it’ll be up to you to find out.
The parking area is situated 1.9km in on the Mount Shark Road. It is just a pullout, so there isn’t really an official name, although “Tent Ridge Parking” should do the trick on Google maps or Apple maps (or use our handy directions at the top of the page). The Mount Shark Road is essentially situated directly in the middle of the Spray Lakes Road (Highway 742), it is 26 km on Highway 742 from the Highway 40 access and 35 km on Highway 742 from the Canmore access. The parking is about a 1:45 hour drive from the Calgary city limits from either the Highway 40 or Canmore access.
The recommended route completes the loop in a clockwise direction. From the parking area, follow Mount Shark Road South for about 300m (less than 5 minutes walk) and turn right on to the obvious trail marked by flagging tape and a sign. Continue up this easy grade trail, hopping over the odd deadfall and keeping right and on the obvious trail. There are a few spur trails blocked off by rocks and branches, so it’s obvious that they should not be taken. The trail slowly gains elevation until reaching a couple of small creek crossings with branch bridges. Once you enter the meadow, it switches back to the left and gains elevation up to the ridge, which is surprisingly close. The trail then exits the trees for a final time and steepens significantly as it makes its way up a well defined trail (mostly dirt, but includes scree and small rocky sections) up the ridge. From here, there are three significant and somewhat exposed 2nd class scrambling sections, the first one being the crux of the route (the most technically challenging). The first scrambling section is avoidable on loose scree trails at climbers right of the ridge. After the scrambles, continue up an easy scree trail until the first summit. To reach the true summit of Tent Ridge, a more gentle dirt and scree trail loses about 100 m of elevation before the last challenging climb, which is quite steep with some loose and rocky sections. From the summit, continue the loop on another trail. Avoid the ridge to the left as necessary on an obvious trail. This portion involves some slippery scree. Once you reach the col (lowest point on the ridge), the trail returns to an easy walk and makes its way over beautiful terrain to the last summit. From here, continue on the very obvious trail down a somewhat slippery and loose scree and dirt trail to the valley. After a while, the trail grade becomes more gentle and makes its way through the woods until coming to a “T” intersection with an old forestry road, where you take a right (the wrong turn is once again blocked by rocks and branches). Walk along this trail until it spits you back out close to the parking area.
This trip started out with the idea of a family hike in mind. After going over some options of Grizzly Peak and Pocaterra Ridge, we settled on Tent Ridge. It was the only one that I actually really wanted to do (I had already done Grizzly Peak and we were going to do Pocaterra Ridge in the fall), and other than the few scrambling sections, Tent Ridge seemed quite straightforward and easy for my mom. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t the best choice, but she made it and it was spectacular. Anyways, we read up a bit on it and decided we’d give it a shot in the clockwise direction (unanimously recommended by me and every other hiking blogger and review ever).
Since there were thunderstorms forecast for the evening, we tried to get out there relatively early, but were a bit late to leave and took extra time to drive out. We started at around 9:30, which was pushing it a tad, but hopefully we’d be done before any seriously threatening thunderstorms rolled in.
The parking area is almost full already with around 30 cars. This certainly is a popular spot, hopefully for good reason.
Where the trail spits you out at the end of the day.
The obvious trail turnoff for the clockwise loop.
It was easy hiking and easier to tell where you shouldn’t turn off.
Many deadfalls scattered the trail. Again, this isn’t for Grandma (unless she’s a fit hiker, then she should be fine).
I was surprised by how soon we started getting views. Here’s a branch crossing of the dry Monica Brook.
Such a beautiful meadow. It would even be nice to just hike just up to here. The trail turns left soon and heads up to the ridge at left with the true summit of Tent Ridge looking impressive ahead.
We spotted tiny scramblers on the ridge above. They look like they’re super close (hint: because they are).
It literally took 10 minutes to get up to the start of the ridge from the valley. It was even closer than expected to be quite honest. This is a good place to fuel up the tank for the scramble ahead. I had a quick protein bar because my belly was feeling hollow.
The trail is very well defined.
There’s a few spots like this and there will be many many more, so make sure you’re comfortable on your feet.
A pretty pillar on the way up.
The crux looks way harder than it is, but the exposure to the left is real. This is probably the most exposed part of the route too. In my opinion, the scrambling is actually very enjoyable, with tons of footholds, and if you’re comfortable you don’t even need your hands. Note that if you really can’t handle this, there are scree trails that head off to the right and bypass it.
Beautiful.
The next scrambling section was longer, but a bit easier.
The scree trails that bypass the crux are visible just left of center. There was a heavy smoke layer sitting to the north, so unfortunately we wouldn’t get the perfect 360 views on this day, but the views were still magical nonetheless.
The final significant scrambling section.
After that, it’s pretty much just hiking to the false summit.
The expansive ridge that we’d get to walk on later on. The Fist is barely visible at far left, and then Mount Smuts is the big one behind, followed by Tent Ridge to its right. Mount Shark is just visible at center.
A final and short bit of easy scrambling before the first peak. Mount Smuts taunts me at right. I may never do that scramble as it’s one of the hardest like ever.
Quite the view from the unnamed peak on Tent ridge. The Fist occupies the center, flanked by Mount Birdwood on its left and Mount Smuts at its right. Further left are Pig’s Tail and Commonwealth Peak. Below Commonwealth Peak is Pig’s Back, and to its left is Commonwealth Ridge. Don’t ask me why they did the whole pig thing for the names.
My dad having a snack with the weather station.
The fist just dominates the view. Also, I’d like to point out something that may be coming to mind. It doesn’t really really look like a fist, so why is it called that? Well. It does look like a fist, it really, really looks like a fist, but you just have to be a bit further south to see it. There’s even a great view of it from the road. I’d recommend checking it out, it is quite phenomenal.
I hung out at this summit and chatted with a couple groups for quite some time while I waited for Christine and my mom to make their way down. I’d genuinely say that the view from this peak is better than from the actual Tent Ridge summit now that I look back at it, but that’s just me. Once they got down to the col, I ran down to catch up and then walked up the stretch to the true summit with a new friend from the trail. There were so many great people on the trail on this day!
The grind to the summit is mostly on a decent trail but there’s a tiny bit more scrambling over some very short sections and some loose scree.
Pano from the summit of Tent Ridge. There’s a route over to The Fist from here if you want to combine the two peaks for a longer day.
Pano in the other direction. Christine just barely made it into the shot.
Great spot for some photos. I might just have to do Mount Smuts one day…
Can’t get enough of this view.
Once my Mom and Christine got up to the summit, we got going pretty quick. It looked like thunderstorms would be rolling in a bit earlier than expected, so we’d have to hustle a bit.
We still had a long way to go though…
Coming down from the summit you have to deal with this. Again, no Grandma and don’t do this as your first hike, otherwise, you should make it.
My mom negotiating some easy slabs.
Looking back.
Another minor scrambling section that we really should’ve bypassed at the skier's left (right side of the image).
The views continued to impress, even with the smoke.
It’s just hiking from here, and very picturesque hiking at that.
Walking along the final stretch of the ridge.
One last shot of the ridge with Mount Birdwood at center. There was frequent thunder at this point, but we couldn’t tell where it was coming from since the smoke was blocking our view. Not the best situation, but we tried our best to get down and off the ridge as soon as possible.
The trail descends slippery dirt and scree just right of center. I found scree skiing fun on this part, but most people stuck to the arguably more slippery dirt trail. The trail then continues to the left and down.
It’s quite a ways down this slippery dirt trail. I found it easier to just run down it, so we left my mom and Christine behind to fend for themselves while my dad and I headed back to the car.
I had a strawberry feast on the old forest service road on the way back.
Bonus! We saw a cybertruck on the way back. So exciting. When we saw it from the front it was actually kind of ugly though (just saying).
Alright so to quickly wrap things up, I can basically boil down the trip to a few main things: there is some scrambling, don’t bring grandma, don’t do it as your first hike, I’m glad to have done it, and I will be back. I’d put this very, very high up on the easy scrambles/hikes list. And if it was less smoky, who knows, it might’ve even claimed top spot for a short/easy day.