*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 17, 2020

Thunder Mountain May 16, 2020 Crowsnest Pass Alberta

Today took us to the north end of the Livingstone Range.  The start of the area is called the gap, and I don't think I had ever been here before and it was a great spot.  We had a fairly large group join us today and it was a great group.  The day started a little windy and fluctuated windy or not windy all day long.  Most of the day you spend looking at a false summit in the distance and then once we reached the top of it a good chunk of our group decided there was too much snow to proceed.  Well I wasn't going to give up that easily and so a few of us carried on and headed through the snow and reached out goal.  The view all day was pretty spectacular.  There was a great view to the west of Crowsnest and the 7 sisters.  Also west was Gould Dome and Tornado two that I'd like to tackle some time.  Anyways we headed down and reunited with the rest at the bottom.  Great day except for the ticks!

The False summit we looked at most of the day

Gould Dome on Left and Tornado right of center

Our first snow obstacle

Our first view of the true summit, a bunch of fresh snow from a few days before

Summit Photo

Crowsnest mountain on the mid left 

Looking down the rest of the Livingstone Range

Cornice we avoided

Track of Hike

Summit Video


May 09, 2020

Hill Crest Mountain May 5, 2020 Crowsnest Pass Alberta

Well another year another birthday hike day.  2020 has been quite a year so far with Covid-19 and it was great to get out and do some hiking, I'm in terrible shape but this was an easy enough hike and the view with all the snow on the mountains was spectacular.  The grunt of this hike is accessing the ridge.  It is fairly steep and going up is slow as you weave in an out of dead trees, it is much the same on the way down.  My three kids had a great day, and we all enjoyed the beautiful weather on top of the mountain.  Hardly a breath of wind and clear skies all around.  We all got a little sun burnt and brought back a few ticks each.  Great first summit of 2020.

View at the Beginning

This is where we went up

Navigating through the deadfall

Cliff band near the summit ridge we had to maneuver through

Top of the cliff band

I love fluffy unicorns (summit register)

Summit Photo

Looking North towards Turtle Mountain and Frank Slide
Beautiful snow covered ridge to the west

Summit Cairn with snow covered ridge behind

On the way down looking towards Castle area

Always wanted to stop and check out these falls (Lundbreck falls) very impressed


Track of Hike