*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

July 14, 2018

Drywood Mountain South Castle June 27, 2018

Well I was preparing for a scout camp at Blue Lake or Bovin Lake and hadn't been there yet so I figured I'd better go check it out, and since I hadn't summited Drywood Mountain yet I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone!  So this was a pretty simple hike.  With the new rules the gate to access this area is closed year round so one must bike the first 5 km in.  It isn't that steep but it is an extra bit of work, however the ride out is super fast!  So we left the trail early and headed up a drainage basin and just found our way up.  We had an early cliff band that took us a bit to find a way up and over, otherwise pretty straight forward.  On top we noticed another group on the summit from the distance and when we arrived there it was Tanner and Bern who we hike with all the time, they had come up the "easier" side and had a good visit with them.  We then ridge walked all the way to Blue Lake and checked out the lake and then hiked/biked back.  Great day and my trusty companion today was my 11 year old.

Beginning of bike ride, too bad the gate isn't open anymore!

This is the drainage we headed up

This is the cliff band that gave us some trouble

As  you can see the cliff band was rather large we eventually took it for a ways east

This was a fun scramble here is what was to the east of us as we went up

Once around the cliff band we had this to tackle, we headed for the saddle on the far left

Looking down on the valley below, you can see the trail to Blue Lake in the middle

Looking across to the ridge of Load Mountain

Neat little rock we paused under for some shade

Last bit was a bit of a scree slog, great view of Loaf on the left

Reunion on top

Father and son picture on summit

Parker looking out over the prairie

Looking south to Waterton in the distance

Traversing over to Blue Lake

On a low point in the ridge we had to regain that ahead of us then drop down into the lake

Loaf across the way, you can also see the cut line trail up to the ridge that one used to access Loaf

Blue Lake 

On our way down to Blue looking at the cliffs above the lake

Blue Lake

Riding out much easier

Summit Panorama



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