My family came to visit! I wanted to take them on a really awesome hike and spent quite a bit of time looking into which one in the Calgary area would give the most bang for our buck. I settled on Tent Ridge because I had actually just been on it a week and a half before, so I knew where I was going, and for the elevation gain, the views are spectacular. It is a bit of a drive from Calgary, but I think it is worth it! From the Spray Lakes Road, the parking area is on the same road as the Engadine Lodge (about 1.5km past the lodge). The trailhead is back up the road 200m from the carpark, and the whole trail is an 11km (650m of elevation) loop that returns you right to the car.
The first few kilometers follow an overgrown trail with lots of deadfall up through the trees to an alpine meadow. It starts off steep, but flattens out for a nice walk through the trees with some stream crossings. From the meadow, you can see all of Tent Ridge above you in a horseshoe shape. The trail was a bit hard to follow through the meadow section, but re-formed in the trees on the east side (left) of the horseshoe. We tried to stop for a snack in the meadow, but there were way to many bugs and it was too wet to sit on the ground. We moved on quickly to get away from the flies.
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| The view of the the west part of the ridge (we hiked this part after lunch and descended on the right side of the ridge) |
