*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

March 26, 2017

Table Mountain March 25, 2017

So I was asked to come and help with the Venture camp in our ward from the Venturer leader.  It was kind of nice to come along as a dad and not a leader.  We stayed the night at Beauvais Lake and then got up the next morning and hiked Table Mountain.  This mountain was the first mountain I ever summited and I have lots of fond memories of his mountain.  The weather has been pretty nice of late and the mountain looked pretty clear of snow, so it looked like it was going to be a good day.  We started a little later than I would have liked but we got on the trail and made pretty good time.  The lower parts of the trail were snow covered but luckily it was pretty packed down so we didn't do much post holing.  About half way up the snow wasn't as packed and we had much more difficulty wading through the drifts as at times we would post hole up to my waist.  So we decided to take an alternative route up and headed up the back side earlier than usual.  It made for a little more scrambling which is never bad in my books but some of the boys weren't used to it.  We eventually summited and had a nice view from the top.  The wind however was howling pretty good and after we had thrown a few rocks from the top we headed down.  On our way up there was another group snowshoeing up the ravine that we had skipped because of the snow and they said it was pretty solid, so on the way down we decided to slide down this ravine.  It was pretty fun and I wish I had a sled as it would have been even better on that.  We then made it back to the vehicles and headed to Lethbridge Dairy Queen for supper.  Good day.

Our Group beginning our hike (Table Mountain in the middle)

About a third of the way up

The aforementioned other group snow shoeing up the ravine

The path we took instead

Snow covered ridge to the south

Another view of the snowshoers and the ravine below

I posted this picture on Facebook/Instagram I mentioned that every time I have done this hike I have recognized and stopped by this tree.  I wonder how many other people have done the same.

Trudging through the snow near the summit

On top of the Table Top!

Beaver Mines lake below, I first camped here in 1990 at the LDS encampment, lots of memories here

Looking west from the summit

Looking south from the summit

Looking east from the summit

Another west shot

The true summit is off in the distance, one day I'll make it over there

I believe they call that Castle Peak in the middle of picture

One last shot of the cliff off of Table Mountain

Our sled run down the ravine

Another shot further down

Another shot

Last shot 

Our group shot at the end

Map my hike track of hike



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