Anderson Mountain East Route

With a less than perfect weather day, I decided to knock off a "dumpster dive" peak. Anderson had been on my list for a while, so I loaded up the mountain bike, and started up Highway 9 to make my approach from the east. The first 4.2 miles was simple enough on the bike, then I started up the PNT on foot. The PNT had some blowdowns, but was fairly manageable, until about 3000'. From this point on, the trail was in absolutely terrible condition. There were so many blowdowns, it was often easier to walk in the woods abeam the trail. If I were to come back to this peak, I would forget about the PNT, and get as close to the summit as possible on logging roads from the south. I followed the summit ridge from "Whatcom Overlook" to the first high point as described. Sure enough, no views, just as promised. For lack of anything better to do, I continued along the summit ridge, over a second high point, then finally to a third high point (according to my GPS, this third high point coincides with the 3364' spot elevation on the USGS map). Suddenly, much to my surprise, I found myself in an area that had views in most directions. Sure, it was necessary to move around a bit to see around the trees, but I had the views nonetheless. Several of the trip reports I had read on Anderson Mountain seemed to suggest there was no possibility of views from this peak. Well, I for one must respectfully disagree. I could see the base of Twin Sisters to the northeast, and probably would have had a good North Cascades view if the cloud bases had been a bit higher. Anyway, all this to say, don't write off Anderson Mountain as a "no view" peak. As long as you go in fairly decent weather, and ensure that you are on the correct high point, you should have something more than trees to look at.