Anacortes, Mt. Erie

August, 2020

A mountain? on small Fidalgo Island? Indeed there are many islands in the world that have sizable mountains on them. Even some small islands have mountains on them. Ok, certainly most of these island mountains aren’t nearly as high as Mt. Rainier, or Mt. Everest, or Mt. Fuji, but they are of significant elevation nonetheless.

On this second day that I was camped here near the town of Anacortes on Fidalgo Island, I took off in the big white truck to get a look at Mt. Erie. It’s only about 1,270 feet high, but when all of the land around the mountain is at sea level, then this mountain is a mountain!

Photo below … driving the road across the island from Washington Park campground to the base of Mt. Erie.

And photo below … I reached the turnoff to the road up to Mt. Erie. The road up Mt. Erie wound around and around, back and forth. It was mostly a one-lane road with a few turn-outs for passing. It was so green and fresh and delicious.

The sign in the photo below, part way up the mountain, enticed me to stop right there and at least think about taking some hikes. I was particularly intrigued by the name Middle Whistle Lake Loop. Was it the “middle loop”? Or was it the “middle lake”? Or was it named after a “middle whistle”?

But I didn’t stop there and go for a hike, there was too much yet to see up at the top. When I arrived at the small parking lot at the top, there was only one other vehicle there. There was plenty of room for me and my big white truck.

There were a number of trails leading away from the parking lot, and a few concrete stairs leading to overlooks. The sign below caught my attention.

Is this mountain high enough for climbers? Is it steep enough? I had heard about this mountain most of my life, but had never heard that it was precipitous.

And then I walked out one trail …

Around one or two bends in the trail …

And came immediately upon this view …

Wow! Notice the rock along the bottom edge of the photo. That’s what I was standing on. There was a railing right there that stopped me from getting closer to the edge, but there was nothing else between where I stood on that rock … and the land way way way down below.

I leaned over the railing, as far as I dared, and STILL could see nothing below me except those very tall trees a very long way down.

That evening back at the campsite, I found this photo (below) on the internet. The wall this climber is scaling is right below where I was standing … and where I was leaning out as far as I could.

Yikes, I promise never to lean out over another rock/cliff edge again in my life!

I backed off from the edge and turned to the right. All of the dark green trees in the photo above are on Fidalgo. But off in the distance, on the horizon, a little hazy, you’ll see the Olympic Peninsula and the Olympic Mountains.

I loved the views. On such a fine day, they were stunningly beautiful. My attention was brought back to my first view and all of those small islands.

I was a boater for 29 years prior to becoming an RV-er. I had been boating up here around Fidalgo many times, more times than I can count. So I began to look closely at all of the little islands before me, in the view above, and tried to figure out which islands they were and whether I’d been boating around them.

Ah ha! I certainly had … many times!

I’ll show you three things that I know of quite well … the RED dot area, the YELLOW dot area, and the GREEN dot area.

Above, the RED dot area. The tide is in/high right now. But when the tide is out, that sandy spit on the right (it’s attached to Whidbey Island), that sandy spit comes close to touching the island on the left (Hope Island). When you are boating, even at high tide, you want to stay WAY over towards the island on the left and not get anywhere near that sandy spit. You’ll notice there is a boat coming through there and it is indeed over by the island on the left … a smart captain who reads nautical charts.

Above, the YELLOW dot area. You can see two boats snuggled up in a little cove against Hope Island in the photo above, pretty much in the center of the photo above. They are tied temporarily to State Park buoys. There are usually four or five buoys in this spot. I’ve been there a number of times, with each of my boats. It’s a really pretty and protected place to moor and just kick back and relax. Hope Island has nothing on it but trees and undergrowth and wildlife, and a few trails. If you have a dinghy with you so you can get to shore, it’s a great island to explore.

Lastly, the GREEN dot area is above. This might be more difficult to pick out the details, but it’s the long narrow and sometimes shallow channel into the town of La Conner. The island on the right with the hump on it has three boats running along its shore (click on the photo to enlarge it). Those three boats are heading to La Conner. Most boaters head through the channel at high tide. If you come in at low tide and if you meet a tug with a large log boom coming at you, you might want to err on the side of safety (I sometimes call it erring on the side of “chicken”) and simply turn around, go back to the mouth of the channel, wait for the tug to come through, and then go in again. I’ve done that very thing and was never sorry. In fact, in both instances, the tug captains tooted a “thank you” to me as they passed me on their way out of the channel. They don’t want problems any more than the rest of us do. It looks like there’s a LOT of water for boats in the photo above, doesn’t it? Well, the water above is mostly very shallow. Again, best to be familiar with your nautical charts and pay attention to your depth sounder.

OK! So those are your boating and small island geography lessons for the day. 🙂

Let’s get back to the top of Mt. Erie and see what else we can find.

There were lots of trails up on the top of this mountain … some paved, and some rough and rugged. I hiked around on some of them for an hour or so.

There were some “trails” that weren’t really meant to be trails and so had been purposefully covered by downed tree trunks and limbs to prevent further access by humans.

On the east side of Mt. Erie, an overlook provided the view below. Hmm, not much to see there.

But when I looked more closely, I began to think I spied something in the distance, in amongst the clouds.

 

Mount Baker! Hiding in the clouds, but peeking out the top. Baker’s two “eyes” are unique among mountains around here.

Then I headed back on the trail towards the big white truck and started thinking about the drive back down the mountain. But as I walked back towards the parking lot, I came across the art piece below. It was handsome. It’s a bronze sculpture created by a local artist and is called Mountain Guardian, watching over visitors to Mt. Erie’s summit.

 

And then it was time to head back down Mt. Erie and get back to my campsite and lunch. Here’s a very short video of the last bit of the drive down the mountain road.

There were five things that I loved about this day’s adventure. 1 … the drive on/across Fidalgo Island and then the drive up to Mt. Erie. 2 … being up on Mt. Erie and seeing the views from that height including my old boating haunts in amongst the small islands. 3 … seeing Mt. Baker in the distance (my Aunt Hallie’s favorite mountain). 4 … taking in the strength of spirit of that scupture, Mountain Guardian. 5 … the drive back down through those glorious woods and forests while thinking over and wondering at what I had just seen.

Five things that I loved. Count them, five favorite things, all in one morning. 🙂