This might just be a new favorite National Park for me. It was magical…sigh.
Where We Stayed: Port Angeles/Olympic KOA
Seven nights after leaving the campground of our dreams in West Glacier, MT, we arrived at the Port Angeles/Olympic KOA. This KOA is a holiday KOA version, not a resort like West Glacier, but our boys were still pretty excited to have a pool, a playground, a store, a campfire ring, and root beer floats and bingo with other campers on our first night. Saving money by boondocking and booking stays in low (no) frills campgrounds makes these trips financially possible. Those nights and stays also make any extra amenities all the more exciting and appreciated. It’s all about the balance for us.
We took advantage of all of the amenities offered during our three-night stay in Port Angeles. We swam, played on the playground, enjoyed a root beer float with fellow campers (bingo was canceled due to low interest – boo!), had a fire each night, and washed up ALL of our laundry in the facility attached to the camp store.
The hot tub looked to be out of order, but that was no biggie, because we often find that KOA hot tubs are only for guests 18 and older, and I always feel immense guilt soaking while my kids would like to and aren’t allowed. There was also a sign at the playground firmly stating that children were not allowed to play without adult supervision, and a sign on the camp office store stating that no one under 12 was allowed into the store without an adult. Maybe it’s because I’m a child of the 80s, or maybe it’s my recent reading of “The Last Child in the Woods”, but GOOD. GRIEF. My 10 yo is wholly capable of pulling a 10 spot from his piggy bank and going to the camp store to buy a candy bar. My 7 yo made a SLEW of “best” friends on our trip this summer on campground playgrounds. All without my help or direct supervision. Children are people. This is a whole post, or series of posts, or heck, a whole separate blog? worth of thoughts and feelings and opinions, so I digress. Suffice it to say that I found all the signage off-putting. But otherwise found the campground to be lovely.
Where We Hiked in Olympic National Park
First, Olympic National Park is, like many National Parks, HUGE. We opted to stay in Port Angeles in the northeast corner of the park. A drive to the Hoh Rainforest was the better part of 3 hours ONE WAY from our campsite. Having accepted that we couldn’t do it all on our trip this summer, I’m really pleased with the places we saw and hikes we completed over two full days to explore the park. That said, on a return trip, I would definitely stay a few days in Port Angeles, and then another few days on the western side of the park so that we could explore more of the National Park.
- Rialto Beach and Hole in the Wall
- Our first Olympic National Park hike was out to the coast where we parked and hiked Rialto Beach to Hole in the Wall. At just shy of 4 miles for our round trip hike, this outing was a first on this trip. We had hiked in mud, rock, snow, and rain…but this hike was all sand! The Pacific Coast is mesmerizing to this life-long east coaster; I think I could spend years on the coast of the Pacific northwest and never get bored. We saw sea stars and anemone, played on drift wood and scrambled over rocky ledges, walked through the Hole in the Wall, and spotted a bald eagle and a seal on our return hike.
- Second Beach
- After Rialto Beach we drove less than 30 minutes to the Second Beach trailhead. At a round trip of a little less than 2 miles, Second Beach gave us a little glimpse of the rainforest element of Olympic National Park (since we knew we wouldn’t be making it to Hoh Rainforest). The trail is wooded, and being surrounded by enormous moss covered trees didn’t prepare me for being ultimately dumped out onto a breathtaking rocky coast. Funny to me was the huge hole in a rock on Second Beach. Scenic hike, rainforest elements, all leading to a rocky coast with unique geological features: no wonder this hike ranks as a “don’t miss” in all of our books and conversations with other travelers. Don’t get me wrong, I am SO happy we hike Rialto Beach. But if I could ONLY do one, I would hike Second Beach. (And be sad that I could only hike one, ha, so – hike them both is my advice!).
- Hurricane Ridge
- This may be one of my favorite hikes of our entire trip. And that is a big statement. Mind you, this hike happened on the same day, and actually very close time proximity, to the only time over 40 days of travel that I threatened to fly home with one of my misbehaving children. It can’t all be sunshine and rainbows every day, people. But my less than my best parenting day aside, this hike was amazing. The hike is strenuous – seemingly far more strenuous to me than I saw it advertised anywhere. Maybe we were just tired? But it is UPHILL. Up, up, up, benches for breaks, UPHILL. But the wildflowers and wildlife and views other Olympic mountain range, and final view of the coast was beyond worth the climb. Absolutely stunning.
Other Olympic National Park Adventures
Our three night stay in Port Angeles allowed us two FULL days of exploring, and we PACKED them both. In addition to our hikes, we filled our time with water fun.
- Crescent Lake
- On our drive to Rialto Beach, we hugged the length of Olympic National Park’s Crescent Lake. By this point in our trip, we had seen some REALLY beautiful bodies of water. I didn’t think I could be more impressed. But this water was SO blue, SO clear, SO stunning – I made Mike pull off so that we could all wade in. On our way back to Port Angeles after our hikes at Rialto and Second Beach, we decided to pull into the Crescent Lake Lodge and Marymere Falls hike trailhead for a better view of the lake. As it turned out, there was plenty of public parking and a long, welcoming beachfront for all National Park guests to enjoy. (Like North Cascades, Olympic National Park didn’t have gates to check park passes – not that we encountered at least! – so this lake access is truly free to the public!). We ended up spending a couple of hours at the lake swimming, and returned the next day prepared with floats and snacks and watched the sunset over the lake.
- Orca Watch with Puget Sound Express
- We’ve been whale watching off Cape Cod, MA, but the prospect of seeing orcas in the wild – something that you don’t get on the East Coast – we decided that a whale watch out of Port Angeles with Puget Sound Express would be well worth the big chunk of our adventuring budget it would claim. Three tickets (Mike does not boat well due to motion sickness) with blueberry buckle added on (umm…it was freshly made and DELICIOUS) came in at just shy of $400. Ouch. But those magnificent orcas: priceless.
