Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

August 2, 2026

373m

Orcas Island, WA

Entrance Mtn. is one of the forested pimples on Orcas Island that boasts over 100 m prominence. This one is a double-summit hill with the northern top slightly higher than the southern one. This is unfortunate as the south summit supposedly has some nice views. The north (true) summit is the typical “trash bagging” that starts from parking on the private roads and finishes with a wooded top with hardly any notable view.

This was the first peak bagged on the Orcas Island slam. I had decided at the very last minute to take Clair and Cheesecake out for a family trip since the weather was mediocre for anything overly fancy. The weather forecast for the San Juan Islands was actually not too terrible so we might as well take advantage of that. The lodging would be way too expensive in the summer months so Clair and Cheesecake would have to learn how to sleep in the car. Fortunately we only had one night of camping planned. This also happened in the August long weekend so I knew the border traffics would be terrible, but we were too spent to get up at 5 am to drive south. Instead, we opted to get up leisurely at 9 am and I had budgeted the entire day Saturday as a “travel day”.

As expected, the border delay was at least 2.5 hours. I played with the Google Map and did as much short-cutting as I could around the Pacific Crossing but way too many were doing the same. I also utilized the duty free to cut ahead but I was forced to spend 15+ dollars in order to exit. Fortunately they had sunscreen in the shop so the money was well spent. I also didn’t reserve the ferry for us since the decision was made at the last minute, and that resulted in 4+ of delay at the Anacortes ferry terminal. Clair got us an Uber back into Anacortes so we could have a proper dinner. After getting dropped on the island I actually went to try Mt. Woolard first, but I got too scared to go too close to the summit house and turned around. I eventually came back and tagged Mt. Woolard on the following day in daytime. I then drove us to the starting point on Entrance Mountain to crash for the night. The last few kilometers were on private roads so the driving and car-camping was completely illegal, but as usual I wouldn’t give a fuck.

I had downloaded Raphael’s GPX track for this outing and I also parked/camped at the exact same spot he did. I casually walked down the road and then up the spur road which was clearly trespassing. Fortunately no one was around to turn me around. I then dashed up the north slopes. There were some intermittent paths but the trail was never too obvious/continuous. Perhaps the local landowners do often thrash up to the top for exercise. The bushwhacking was minimal asides one short stretch of pick-up sticks. I wondered around the summit for a bit and found some views towards east on a bluff. Honestly, it was meh that I shouldn’t even bother.

Not doing much lingering I quickly descended and mostly retraced the GPX that I had created myself. I quietly walked down the gated part of the private road and then up the main (also private) road to regroup with Clair. The landowners still hadn’t discovered us yet so we quickly packed up and drove away. This “stealth bagging” thing was basically the theme for peak-bagging on Orcas Island. Out of the 9 peaks we did, 7 required such practices.