*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 13, 2018

Mount Temple Banff National Park August 8, 2018

So to date this is the highest mountain I have ever climbed and was it ever a great one.  Our day however started out about as bad as it could.  We woke up at about 5:30 and drove from our campsite at Tunnel Mountain in Banff to Moraine Lake.  Well at about 6:30 we got to the turn for Moraine Lake and the park was already closing the road access by barricading the intersection.  They claimed the parking lot was already full and that there was already over 40 vehicles too many up at the Lake.  We of course were the first vehicle to be turned away and had to wait till 8:00 am till they would let us up.  It was painful waiting and because we got a later start we probably hiked the first 6km to Sentinel pass a little quicker than we should have.  In the end it didn't make a difference but I was worried we would be coming down in the dark.  This total time for the hike was about 9 hours (much shorter than the 12 hours I thought it would be).  This actually is quite an easy hike, it is trailed the entire way and aside from one exposed climbing section it is actually not bad.  It is tiring but if you have a nice day like we did I would recommend this to any prepared in shape hiker.  I did notice that the higher elevation made it a little more difficult to breath.  This mountain was over 1000 feet higher than I have ever been on.  The views around were spectacular even though a good amount was impeded due to the haze of smoke that was all around us due to the B.C. forest fires currently west of us.  We summitted after about 5 hours of hiking and stayed at the top for quite some time before we descended.  The day was perfect and the weather was great.  This is one of those mountains I would love to do again and I think I will, especially in the fall when the larches are turning colour in the valley of the larches. 

Moraine Lake, one of the most beautiful Lakes I've been to

Valley of the 10,000's with the Larches

Sentinel Pass with Temple on the right

Looking over Sentinel Pass to Mt. Lefroy

Got a good view of Pinnacle Mountain most of the day

There were great marked Cairns the entire way like this one.

Getting a great shot on this awesome cliff

Beautiful valley below us

The Valley of the 10,000's was awesome to behold

Slowly making our way up

First views of Moraine Lake from above...spectacular!

Standing on the snow on the summit with Moraine Lake down below

Looking north towards Mt. Lefroy and Mt. Victoria

Father and Son Summit Picture

Our group we hiked with, great crew

Another Father and Son picture on the way down

My Niece on that cliff was the bravest, we couldn't believe she got that close!

On the way down surrounded by Larches
 



In this video I falsely thought a peak was Mt. Assiniboine, I'm pretty sure I was wrong


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