*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 01, 2019

Mount Wilbur July 31, 2019 Glacier National Park

So we had this mountain on our sights for a while, and today was that day.  Well I'm not sure what I expected, but this was a bit of a pig!  The trailed approach to start was nice, but the scramble up the slopes to the more technical portion was a complete grunt.  Also I was just out of gas today and really struggled up this mountain.  Anyways we reached the summit block and found the route that we had been told about and made it very carefully up to the summit without having to use any technical gear.  There were some spots that it may have been a good idea, but we managed.  The view down on Iceberg lake was spectacular and made you almost forget the grunt approach.  So we summited and it was a beautiful clear day, and then made our way down.  We wisely decided to rappel down the sketchier spots and I think that was a good decision.  It was slower but much safer.  Once through that we decided to try an alternate descent route because we didn't want to go down what we came up.  Well I don't think there is any good way up or down this mountain.  So we eventually made it back to the main trail by about 9:45 pm and had a good 4 or 5 km to go.  So we kicked it into high gear and made it back to the vehicle by about 10:20 pm.  We then rushed to the border and made it there by about 10:53 pm.  Just barely, but we made it and I slept very good that night...till I had to get up to work the next morning.

Beautiful reflection on Redrock Lake

Mt. Wilbur on approach

There were a lot of great flowers to see on the way up

I hate approaching on grass slopes and this mountain had a lot of it!

There are a few routes up... we did't take this one

Thin man's pleasure is the route most people take and we think this was it because it entails traversing under a big bolder...but this wasn't as thin of an opening as we had thought...so maybe we went the wrong way?

Looking out from under "thin mans pleasure"

Looking down what we came up

Not the summit yet but this viewpoint was spectacular

Not on the summit either but another great shot down on Iceberg Lake.  The summit view actually isn't that great for looking down on stuff, it is great for seeing the vista all around you though

Couldn't get enough of this view

Where we came down

Our alternate descent route took us over to Bull Head Point, this is traversing the east slopes of Wilbur

On Bull head point looking as the sun drops behind Wilbur.  You can also see Iceberg notch on the right

Bull Head point, where we descended.  Not the greatest but we made it.

Photo sphere on Summit






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