*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 31, 2019

Mount Haig August 28, 2019 Castle Wildland Alberta

Today was a father and son outing, our usual wednesday group had all gone separate ways, so today I figured we'd do some more of the Castle area.  It was a good day, beautiful and clear.  Driving up I could see the horizon of mountains so clean and crisp, it has been great this year because there has been no forest fires...yet! So we started at the Huckleberry chair lift and worked our way all the way up.  Once we summited we noticed how small of a section the huckleberry run is.  We had a great clear vista on top.  We thought about bagging Gravenstafel Ridge on the way down but we decided we'll save that for another day.

Top of Huckleberry Chair

Cool burned tree on the way up

The ridge left of the shaded area is where we went up

First view of Haig Lake, a friends son died this spring skiing here

View of the ridge we went up, the rock was very crumbly and not very stable, but we made it up

We had a few tricky sections on the way up

Through the hard part

Final push to the summit ridge

The summit ridge

Carter on the summit looking west into B.C.

Looking back from the summit towards Castle Peak

East face of Haig on the way down

Haig mountain and lake

Big Larch tree on the way down

A bunch of trees had this moss on them, now sure why

2 months ago this bear grass would have been amazing

Back on the ski slopes



Photo Sphere on Summit

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August 25, 2019

Turtle Mountain August 24, 2019 Crowsnest Pass

So day 3 of our scout camp ended up being another hiking day...hurray!  Well at least the boys though that by the end, they didn't want to hike at first but were glad they came by the end.  I said to them I don't know anybody who regrets going on a hike after the hike!  I had done this a couple years ago and today we did about same rout between the two summits.  The cracks between the summits is what the boys really enjoyed.  They are pretty neat and are huge.  The instruments on the true summit also intrigued the boys.  Great day and great pizza at Captain's Pizza once we finished.

On our way up!

Little wood t-pea

First view over the slide

True summit now in view

Rock on the first false summit

View of the slide from the first false summit

Group shot on the first false summit with the true summit behind

Exploring the cracks

Another big crack

Perched over the Slide

Almost to the true summit, check out Crowsnest Mountain in the distance

Slide view from the true Summit

Old abandoned equipment that was used to sense cracks getting bigger

We headed over to the helicopter landing pad and I think that is actually the high point of the hike

Track of Hike




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Gargantua Caves August 23, 2019 Crowsnest Pass

So every few years we take out scouts through these caves and well this was going to be my third time going.  We have always come up the B.C. side since it is shorter and now because the government has shut down any motorized vehicle use from the Alberta side the B.C. side will get far more used.  It was a great day and I got to take my 2nd son.  Now I have taken both my boys through these caves. Photography in these caves are difficult, I used my go pro this year and got some pretty good video.

Our group starting out

Heading up the scree

Here you can see the entrance in the top right corner and the exit on the bottom left.

Entrance of the cave

We saw four goats, they came and were licking up our urine???

I took a bunch of shots when they were close to us and they were not scared at all

Father and Son picture at the cave entrance

The first rappel 

2nd rappel

Our group waiting to go down the final 5th rappel to enter the "birth canal"

Beautiful vista on our way down

Track of Hike



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Highline Trail and Swiftcurrent Mountain August 16, 2019 Glacier National Park

So I had done this trail years ago but today we added a few side trips.  It was a cooler day and thus we didn't get as hot, which was nice.  However, we barely missed a hug downpour of rain at the end and then that night it snowed on Logan's Pass.  Anyways, this is a very common trail very traveled and the entire way was trailed.  To my surprise the Fire-lookout at Swiftcurrent mountain is still in use.  Anyways great day with lots of km's. 

Start of our day

Oberlin very nice summit with a great view

Haystack Butte on the left with the Garden Wall in the middle

Looking back at Oberlin

Those are some steep cliffs

Got a good view looking towards Lake Macdonald

Looking down on Grinnell Lake/Glacier and Salamander Glacier

Granite Park Chalet

Swiftcurrent fire lookout

View down on Many Glacier with Wilbur on the left

Looking towards Mt. Gould with Swiftcurrent glacier in the middle

Looking down on the Chalet

The cold front coming over Logan's Pass, it snowed that evening

The miserable weather at the Pass parking lot

Track of Hike



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