HEART O’ THE HILLS
RUN BY: Olympic
National Park
LOCATION: Port
Angeles, WA
UTILITIES: None
COST: $20
DISCOUNTS: Senior
Access (50%) and other Interagency passes
OUR RATING (1-5): Category I, Rating 3+
NOTES: Just inside the
park’s northern entrance on the road to Hurricane Ridge, the campground is in a
heavy rainforest of cedars. Don’t plan
on getting a lot of direct light for your solar panels. The terrain is quite hilly but beautiful. The
sites are small and a bit difficult. We saw a large class A and I must admit I
don’t know how they got it in there.
Olympic National Park is magnificent. You must go up to Hurricane Ridge
and see the Hoh Rain Forest on the west side. There is a stretch of park right
on the Pacific Ocean. Stop at Kalaloch Lodge right on US-101 on the west side
of the peninsula. You can access the beach easiest through Kalaloch Campground
right next door. We also went whale hunting out of Port Angeles. So that we didn’t waste a lot of time
traveling, and also since we really like boondocking off the grid, we went from
here to Hoh Oxbow south of Forks, a free state campground with a state pass.
(The pass is well worth the money.) We have a review of Hoh Oxbow.
Environment: A
very heavy cedar rain forest canopy.
Elevation is 1839ft.
Amenities: none
Dump: No
(Since we were heading counter-clockwise around the peninsula, we dumped
at a State facility called Fairholm well west of Port Angeles. www.rvdumpsites.net doesn’t show any dump stations in Port
Angeles. There are some east.)
Public Water: Yes
Toilets: Yes
Showers: No
Laundry: No
(nearest laundry in Port Angeles)
Phone Service: Verizon was very poor.
Nearest Propane: We did not need propane so I didn’t check
this out. Sorry! Port Angeles is a large
enough town that there should be propane available. It is just outside the
park.
Location: Enter
the park at the Heart O’ the Hills Ranger Station (Hurricane Ridge Rd) and
watch for the campground on the left just yards past the park entrance. The way to the park is well marked. You can
miss the campground because it is so close to the gate and the sign sits back a
bit.
Proximity to shopping: about 16 miles to Port
Angeles. It is a good sized community
and seems to have just about anything you could want.
Camping Population:
varied
Sites: really
tight but private. They just weren’t made for RVs. It was even a tight squeeze for us.
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RATING KEY:
category - score
Categories: I -
established campgrounds where one might spend a vacation or several days
II
- boondocking, dry camping where there
are no designated sites and no amenities but
one might choose to stay for more than a night.
III
- over-night areas
You must remember that we are scoring 1 thru 5 according to
things which are important to us: the environment, cost, amenities,
location, safety, camping population, site, phone service
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