Little Mountain

February 19, 2020

285m

Mount Vernon, WA

I know at least a dozen peaks with the name “Little Mountain” across various parts of North America. This one is a small wooded hill in the vicinity of Mount Vernon in Washington state. This peak is fairly popular among the locals as a road runs all the way to the summit and the area is known as “Little Mountain Park”. There are limited views from the summit but nothing spectacular by any mean. I bagged it as the last peak of my 4-peak half-day dumpster-diving around Mount Vernon. Earlier in the day I had bagged Big Rock, Devils Mountain and Scott Mountain.

Little Mountain hiking and exploring. GPX DL

I could have just driven to the summit but I wanted to see a bit more than just the road, so parked at the bottom of the park and took a steep trail that traversed around the north flanks to a “north viewpoint”. The pick of the trail was completely random as I did zero research and made the spontaneous decision. I was going to just drive to the summit but changed my mind at the park’s entrance. There wasn’t much to see until the viewpoint but the viewpoint was also quite averaged. The nearby Devils Mountain and Scott Mountain both offered better views. Not doing much lingering I walked up the uppermost portion of the road to the summit and joined the hordes of tourists.

Hiking up a steel trail on the north side of the hill

The city of Mount Vernon from the “north viewpoint”

Looking towards Lyman Hill and Mt. Baker from the same viewpoint

Joining the tourists that drove up to the summit

Limited view of Puget Sound Lowlands from the summit lookout

After taking a few so-so photos I went to explore the “Ridge Trail” as the true summit was labelled on a different location down the ridge on my Gaia map. However, the traverse across the “Ridge Trail” was mostly flat and downhill so it’s difficult to tell where exactly is the true summit. However, since I traversed the peak I could safely claim it. The descent from “Ridge Trail” dumped me to the lower part of the road and instead of exploring another trail I opted to just walk back on the road. I still had a long day ahead thank to the work…

Some view from the “Ridge Trail”

Descending the “Ridge Trail”