“Mount Sarcee” (’Ripsaw')(GR373253) – West Ridge Attempt.

 

Scott on our highpoint of the West Ridge. 

Mt. Sarcee is an unofficial name applied by David Jones in the guidebook "Rockies South. The Climber's Guide to the Rocky Mountains of Canada: Volume 1" (2020) for this significant peak (GR373253, summit height approximately 3000m) immediately east of Mt. Evan-Thomas. I met with David several times and provided a lot of information for the Opal Range when he was writing this guidebook, he had indicated that Mt. Sarcee was the name preferred and used by local climbing legends Glen Boles and Don Forest. 

Local hiking guidebook author Gillean Daffern has used the name “Ripsaw” for this summit. Gillean’s name was derived from the extremely jagged saw blade like North East Ridge of Mt. Sarcee. This sharp ridge is visible from highway 40 looking upstream into Evan-Thomas Creek. The name Ripsaw was always applied to the highest primary summit of the mountain. 

Tuesday June 9 Scott Berry and I set out for an attempt on the West Ridge of Mount Sarcee. We had attempted the South Ridge back on July 23, 2025 and were hopefully for redemption. Scott flew in from California and we had booked this time off work months ago. Unfortunately, the wet cold snowy spring and weather forecast did not provide us with a lot of confidence on success.

Great photo taken by Scott Berry from our July 2025 South Ridge attempt.
Low col left of centre is "Paradise Pass", Mt. Evan-Thomas to the left (west).
The full West Ridge and all the difficulties of the upper South Ridge are visible.
Mt. Sarcee summit right of centre. 

The weather forecast wasn’t good, but the forecast called for June 11 to be sunny and dry, fingers crossed. We biked to the Romulus campground on Tuesday evening and enjoyed some wine by a relaxing campfire.

Wednesday, June 10, the morning was cloudy, but dry and we started off with reasonable weather conditions. We were familiar with the approach and made good time to the excellent trail that heads north from the West Fork of the Little Elbow River to “Paradise Pass”, the col immediately west of Mt. Sarcee. As we ascended to tree line, the snow got deeper and deeper. At meadows below Paradise Pass, the average snowpack was about 1 metre deep! We found an area well sheltered by trees and managed to clear snow to have a dry (icy) tent platform.

Dug in a semi dry tent site.

Wednesday afternoon and evening we had on and off rain/snow showers. The plan for Thursday June 11 was to hike to the base of the West Ridge and keep climbing, hoping weather and rock difficulties allowed us to summit.

Thursday morning was blustery, cold winds and mostly cloudy skies. We had fingers crossed that the wind would clear out the cloud and provide the forecasted clear and dry day? Fun snow climbing, with good snow conditions, took us quickly up the lower West Ridge. Some fun scrambling with easy mixed snow/ice/rock took us relatively quickly to the high point of the West Ridge (once denoted on GAIA gps app as the summit of “Ripsaw”/updated 2026 with this mislabeled name removed).

Once at the high point of the West Ridge, we were convinced that we were out of luck. Black and scary clouds were immediately west of us, darkening the sky west of Mt. Blane and other Opal summits. As well, the West Ridge looked very challenging, difficult rock climbing. Between the incoming bad weather and upcoming complex rock climbing, we descended.

Black skies moving in from the west.
Dark Mt. Blane.

And it was the correct decision. As we crossed the snowy meadows back to our camp, it began to snow. From about noon on Thursday to noon on Friday, it probably snowed about 1 metre at our camp. Friday morning we hoped the weather would clear, but it just kept snowing and snowing. We packed up a soggy camp and headed home. Once again the mighty Mount Sarcee repelled our determined resolve.

 

View towards Paradise Pass as we headed out Friday afternoon.