*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

August 13, 2018

Abbott Pass Hut Yoho/Banff National Park August 6-7, 2018

Well this was a week I had in the plans for a while.  My Brother came up from Oregon and we decided to do some adventuring in Yoho and Banff.  We decided to start with staying at the Abbott Pass Hut.  So Monday morning we headed from home and drove to Lake O'hara took our bus and started our climb up to the Pass.  Our party of six was amazed at the beauty of this area and I see why the park limits the visitors to this area.  The hike up was great until the scree slog.  It was quite the gruelling task to climb up that last bit.  We eventually made it and got to behold our accommodations for the night.  This Hut is truly a gem, it was really fun to stay at that elevation and to be staying in the 2nd highest permanent structure in Canada.  It is also a Canadian National Monument.  As a side note, when we returned from our week we found out that the Hut has been shut down due to fear the erosion going down the Banff side of the Hut is too great and the Park is assessing the danger and until they can figure out how to stop it they are not allowing any more visitors.  So we barely made it and am glad we didn't have our reservation cancelled!  The hut itself it incredible, fully equipped and quite warm at night.  I had fears of being cold so I way over prepared and brought to much stuff. If I ever do it again I'll pack less.  The downside of this hut is sleeping in a communal area with 24 other people who snore or make noise getting up to use the facilities in the night.  So we slept okay and the next morning we got up and ate and then made our way down the mountain.  We thought we would take out time and when we realised we could make the 11:30 but we decided to hurry and just barely made it.  All in all a great stay at a beautiful historic site.

Lake O'Hara at the start of our hike

My Niece with Lake O'Hara behind

This little Lake is called Victoria Lake and I believe that is Glacier Peak in the middle

This is Lefroy Lake

This is Lake Oesa

Looking down on Lake Oesa

Just starting our scree slog

Looking up the Scree Slog

Going up the scree and looking down on Lake Oesa

Taking some cool pictures with the amazing views

Silhouette pictures are great as the evening approaches

We finally arrive and see our home for the night

Looking into Alberta down the valley which eventually leads to Lake Louise 

Used my wide angle lens to capture this amazing view

Sunset shot

Morning view of the hut

Morning sun on Mt. Victoria

Morning sun looking west

Picture of the accomodations

Wide angle shot looking west, beautiful view

Here you can see the erosion on the side of the hut, it is getting pretty bad

Getting ready to leave

On our way down

About half way down the scree, much easier coming down

Beautiful view of Lake Oesa

Last shot of Lake O'Hara before we boarded the bus


Track of Hike going up to Pass

Track of Hike going down from Pass

Video on way up

Video as we reached the Hut

Video on top

Photo Sphere on Top




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