August 2, 2025 – Anacortes, WA, USA (elevation: 1,273 ft)
The weekend before my first true mountaineering trip on glaciated terrain, I hiked up two small peaks to stay in shape. All-in-all, it was a negative experience. Three quirks of this strenuous loop trail made it not my favorite.
It was an arbitrary decision to hike the Mount Erie and Sugarloaf Loop in Anacortes. It was the weekend after my easy ascent of Pikes Peak and I wanted a challenging hike near my hometown of Mount Vernon, WA to keep my legs strong. The short list also included just hiking Little Mountain over and over and over again, but instead I settled on a 9.5 mile route with two summits and 2,657 ft of elevation gain out West on Fidalgo Island.
I parked near the Sugarloaf Mountain Trailhead just south of Heart Lake. That particular Saturday, friendly folks were manning a table near the trailhead. Over the first half mile, I realized I’d done a small dumb thing, and that resulted in inconvenience multiplying with compound interest: I forgot to wear a belt. Eventually, I hiked my pants up high and kept them up by tightening the waist strap of my backpack. The downside to that was I couldn’t keep my phone in a pants pocket and have it accessible. For lack of a better solution, I placed it in a zipper pouch on the waist strap. Since I was hiking with trekking poles, it was a nuisance accessing the phone with both hands full.
Frustration #1
Erie and Sugarloaf boasted a spiderweb-like network of well-maintained trails. The big downside to this is that I had to constantly check the GPS-enabled AllTrails app on my phone to stay on course. Every few minutes there was an opportunity to take a wrong turn down a side trail. Did I mention that I couldn’t just casually pull my phone out of my pocket when I needed it?
It was an easy hike to the summit of Sugarloaf. Since I was hiking alone, in the interest of safety, I texted my Mom an occasional photo of where I was at. Ironically, shortly after she called and I told her how safe the conditions were that day (e.g. lots of fellow hikers on the trails), I heard an older gentleman scream the F-word. As he and I passed each other, he warned me about a swarm of bees that stung him. 🐝
Frustration #2
Although the trails on Sugarloaf were easy to follow with GPS, portions of Erie were difficult. The most confusing part was after I passed the first of two rock-climbing areas. It took some backtracking, guesswork, and scrambling over treacherous terrain to keep going. Since I couldn’t match up the path shown on AllTrails with anything that resembled a trail, I just made my own way the best I could in the right upward direction.
Frustration #3
After navigating the hazardous portions where the trail was unclear, I began to notice an additional challenge: to proceed to the summit of Mount Erie, there was a whole lot of hiking downhill in order to go back up. Let’s be clear: it’s normal to have downhill bits along a predominantly uphill hike. With Erie, it was just odd the path went down for so long, which was hard on my middle-aged knees, even with trekking poles to soften my steps.
The Summit
After a hike of roughly 9 miles, I reached the summit. It offered picnic tables, portable toilets, and nice views of Anacortes and nearby islands. Lots of folks drove cars up there to enjoy the views as well.
Descent
The way back down posed two problems: (1) my knees were killing me; and (2) my phone was dying, since I’d been checking it constantly over the course of five hours to stay on the trail. Fortunately, my parents were nearby in LaConner. When my Mom called again to check on my progress, I begged for a ride back down to my car. There was little chance I could have hobbled down before my cell phone died, which would have left me without means of navigation.
I walked back down to the Anacortes Community Forest Lands sign and awaited my rescuers. At this point, I’d like to thank a local lady (whoever you are, somewhere out there) who checked to see if I was okay.
Lessons Learned
Would I discourage others from taking this trail? Not at all. My complaints were circumstantial: the complex web of trails required me to keep checking my phone, which decimated battery life. I also didn’t count on so much downhill on the way up, so my knees were already trashed when it was time to descend.
It’s pretty up there. One could also scale it back by doing both mountains in a shorter (4.4 mile) loop or the easy hike of just Sugarloaf (1.9 miles).