After a somewhat disappointing start to the summer (where I wrecked my foot on the HBC Trail), I had a very eventful end of the season. My friends got married outside of Calgary at the end of August, so I decided to turn it into a 2 week holiday to the Rocky Mountains! I lived in Vancouver for 6 years before I finally visited the Rockies during Covid in 2020. Since then, I’ve been back every year and I love exploring around all the National Parks!

To start off the trip, I caught up with some friends living in Calgary and we went day hiking in Kananaskis. I haven’t spent much time in this area except for starting my Assiniboine hike at Mount Shark. The trail my friend Craig picked for the day was Tent Ridge, which actually starts very close to the Mount Shark trailhead, but is a very different kind of hike. It’s approximately a 2 hour drive from Calgary or a 1 hour drive from Canmore. You can get there in any kind of vehicle, but it is partially gravel road and quite dusty (but in good condition).

Tent Ridge is a fairly modest hike at only 10km total distance, but don’t underestimate it! Although we parked at the wrong trailhead and added an extra 2km to our hike (drive past the first turnoff for about 1km and there’s a lot). Throughout the trail there is ~850m in elevation gain and a fair bit of scrambling. If you’re afraid of heights, this is definitely not the hike for you. We encountered a few people on our way up that had decided to turn around because the scrambling was too intense for them.

Describing a hike as a “scramble” basically means that there are some exposed sections where you may need to do a bit of light climbing with your hands, or where the trail is not super obvious through some sections. I’m not really a big scrambler, but overall I felt good on Tent Ridge. There is one section early into the ascent where I had to use my hands to climb and that was probably the sketchiest section, after that it’s not too bad, except maybe for one spot along the ridge on the other side that is quite steep with some loose rock, so I did this part in a low crouch in case I had a slip. But personally, I found that the scrambling at Tent Ridge generally looked scarier than it was. The one climbing section looked a bit intimidating at first, but up close I felt safe the entire time.

The main thing to be aware of at Tent Ridge is the direction of your hike. My favourite part of this trail is that it’s a loop hike, so you’re always looking at new terrain, but it’s a lot easier to go clockwise. The climbing sections are all done uphill when you go clockwise, which is generally a lot safer, so if you decide to visit, definitely start in this direction. I also generally think that clockwise is the more scenic direction as well, because on the descent, you get to look out towards Spray Lakes reservoir, which is incredibly scenic and I would hate to have my back to it on the way up.

My group had 3 hikers and it took us ~5.5 hours to do the entire hike with breaks. We weren’t rushing, but we weren’t going that slow either. You do a decent amount of elevation gain in the trees at the start, and then the rest is done in 2 ascents along the ridge. The first ascent takes you up to a small emergency shelter and is the largest climb, after which you drop down through a pass for a smaller ascent up to the second peak. After that, it’s all ridge walking and pretty much the entire trail has phenomenal views.

We stopped a lot to take photos, so that definitely slowed us down. Craig takes some of the most beautiful pictures and all the shots of me that I share in this blog were taken by him. Our friend Alex was in much better shape than the two of us and always well ahead while we were ogling the landscape, so it’s a very enjoyable hike and I had the best time soaking in the views.

It can be a bit cold from the wind up on the ridge, so bring extra layers with you. I also really recommend trekking poles. It’s a steep descent when you come down and poles helped a lot with balancing. Just make sure to secure your poles to your pack when you need your hands for climbing as it’s a lot safer that way.

Overall it’s a pretty short trail report – the trail is in great shape – so I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. We concluded our hike with a stop in Cochrane on the way back for some delicious ice cream from MacKay’s Ice Cream, which we all highly recommend!!