Elwha RV Park Olympic National Park RV + Campsite Packages
12 RV Rental + Campsite Packages
Elwha RV Park in Port Angeles, Washington, provides a gated full-service RV resort at the gateway to Olympic National Park, positioning guests in Clallam County's Elwha River valley where one of the most celebrated dam removal and river restoration projects in American conservation history has returned the wild salmon to the Elwha's full watershed for the first time in a century. Situated minutes from the national park's Elwha Valley entrance and Port Angeles's ferry connection to Victoria, British Columbia, the resort serves as the most comprehensively equipped lodging base in the Port Angeles area for guests whose Olympic Peninsula itinerary includes the park's varied ecosystems from temperate rainforest to subalpine meadow.
The resort's facility is purpose-built for Olympic National Park visitors who want resort-quality infrastructure alongside maximum park access: gated entrance, full hookup sites with big-rig capability, cabin rentals, bike rentals, a clubhouse, recreation center, pavilion, dog park, general store, boutique shop, walking trails, sports courts for basketball, volleyball, and horseshoes, RV storage, laundry, firewood, and Wi-Fi collectively provide the service depth that extended national park base-camp stays require. The Elwha River flows adjacent to the property, providing the restored wild river access whose ecological transformation since the 2011-2014 dam removal has made the Elwha Valley one of the most significant ecological restoration stories in the Pacific Northwest.
The Elwha River dam removal—completed in 2014 when the Glines Canyon and Elwha dams were fully extracted in the largest dam removal project in United States history—restored salmon passage to 70 miles of the Elwha watershed for the first time since 1913, releasing a natural sediment flow that is rebuilding the river's delta and estuary in a real-time ecological experiment observed by scientists and conservationists worldwide. The returning Chinook, coho, and pink salmon runs continue to grow each year as the river's spawning habitat recovers and the lower Elwha Tribe's cultural connection to the salmon is renewed after a century of dam-enforced absence.
Olympic National Park encompasses three distinct ecosystems within its 922,000 acres—the glacier-capped Olympic Mountains, the Pacific Coast wilderness beaches, and the temperate rainforests of the Hoh, Quinault, and Queets river valleys where annual rainfall exceeding 140 inches produces the largest temperate rainforest in the Western Hemisphere outside British Columbia. Hurricane Ridge, accessible via a 17-mile paved road from Port Angeles, provides the most accessible subalpine mountain views and winter skiing in the park, rising to 5,242 feet above the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the most dramatic immediate mountain ascent from a coastal community in the lower 48 states.
Elwha RV Park operates year-round in the Pacific Northwest's maritime climate, with the summer hiking season from June through September driving peak demand for Olympic National Park access and the late-season salmon viewing on the restored Elwha River creating a compelling fall attraction from October through November when the returning Chinook and coho are most visible in the river's restored spawning gravels below the former dam sites. The Port Angeles-Victoria ferry provides a day-trip international border crossing experience unique among campground day-trip options, and the resort's year-round gated operations and full hookup infrastructure serve the shoulder-season and winter visitors who find Olympic Peninsula crowds significantly reduced outside the summer peak.
