*I hope people use their own wise judgement when hiking always plan ahead and be prepared. One should never go beyond their abilities.*

Over the years I've had a few goals my first was to Summit all the Peaks of Waterton. Here is My Waterton Summit List I completed that goal on September 26, 2016.

My next goal I'm still working on and that is to summit the 6 10,000 foot Summmits of Glacier National Park. I have one left Kintla.

My 2018 Goal that I accomplished was to summit 40 peaks in my 40th year and that I finished on September 26, 2018.

Not sure what will be my next goal, once Glacier's Summits are done?

I commonly use 3 Hashtags on my social media. The first one is #itookthepathlesstraveledby which is to reference this blog. The next two relate to my father and grandfather who were also hikers. #milesformarkellingson is to remember my
Dad, Mark Ellingson and #dustfromthetrailandhowitsettledonme is to remember my Grandfather Earl Ellingson

May 27, 2018

Table Mountain Castle Wilderness May 26, 2018

So the third year in a row we had a church Father's and Son's camp and for the third year in a row I went hiking with one of my boys.  Carter my oldest would have come but he hurt his hip running at his zone track meet this week (he still finished 3rd in the 3000m run with a 10:39 time).  So my youngest boy came along and we joined another father and a couple of his kids too.  We started pretty late since we had slept in pretty late.  The day looked like it might be a rainy one but the clouds were able to stay clear enough that we didn't have much for precipitation the entire day.  I think this is the 5th time I had gone up this mountain.  I actually think it was the first mountain I have ever climbed.  Well we had technically never reached the true summit.  Most people just climb to what I refer to as the Table Top and turn back but the true summit lies about 2km to the east.  Well today we made it to the true summit and it was actually a nice pleasant ridge walk over there and the view back on the Table top was tremendous.  I got a few more good looks at Castle Peak today as well and a good view of Victoria Peak which we had done a few days before.  As we looked down on the Beaver Mines/Camp Impressa area below I was reminded that it had been 28 years since I was a 12 year old boy going to my first big scout camp as a kid and it was a week long camp at Impessa.  Many fond memories came to my mind as I though of all the great times I'd had in this area over the years.  Aside from Waterton I think I have camped more at this place than any other.  This is a pretty area and now with Waterton shut down for a bit this more secluded area may become more known and busy.

Last year we climbed this in March and this creek bed was covered in snow and we were able to slide down the snow, not now though

Looking back on the creek bed

On first little lookout looking towards the west

My favourite tree hiking.  I always pass this tree every time I climb Table

On Table Top, the true summit is the high point behind us

Beaver Mines/Camp Impessa view

Father and Son on Table Top

Larch Trees a little further along here than a few days ago on Victoria

Had to walk on a little snow on the way to the true summit

Summit Shot

View over to Table Top with my son in the middle

Looking back at the summit where my boy would have been standing in the picture above

Castle Peak in the middle

Traversing back to Table Top

One last view from Table Top

Easy descent shale ski

Beautiful snow partially covered mountains in the distance

Guess what we did after the hike! End of a good Father's and Son's weekend



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