Frank Smythe, who travelled widely and was the author of numerous books regarding many of the world's ranges had unkind things to say about Monarch Mountain. In, "Climbs in the Canadian Rockies," he wrote of the view of the peak from Elysium Pass as follows, "...which if a small mountain is an imposing one from this direction. It was, as we discovered, a fraud in that it is a writing-desk type, and the other side is a long slope of snow which can be walked up to the summit, while the array of majestic rock peaks which rose above the camp we pitched later that day was merely the crest of one of the ridges of Monarch Mountain, and I regret to state that this mountain was not so much a monarch as a pretender." The Monarch and Monarch Ramparts are located in the southern Rockies. The Monarch dominates the area in the vicinity of Simpson Pass.