Olympic National Park, Wilderness Information Center — Attraction in Port Angeles

From the Center we took a Trail along Peabody Creek. The trail was absolutely beautiful and showed clear signs of constant, quality upkeep along the path. While hiking we came across many small waterfalls, beautiful bridges, and Ray Weigel, a Volunteer who was cleaning up decaying fall leaves from the trail. Ray told me the history of that portion of the Olympic National Park. The area had been logged sometime around 1910. The loggers wanted to log again and plow the creek in the 1940's. Wilson asked the local government to protect the area as Peabody creek was an estuary and source of water for Port Angeles. The request was refused so he went all the way to DC to plead with the Federal Government to protect the area of Peabody Creek. He was successful, as you can attest to, yourself. The Visitor Center was closed on the Saturday (11/18/17) we went, for remodeling and what appeared to be an...

The WIC is really cool and is the perfect spot for anyone who is really into Olympic Peninsula camping. Come here in person, I recommend it. They have a lot of useful information and tips. The rangers even gave me the opportunity to dodge a few bullets on my camping trip. However, I would not recommend calling the WIC. Rangers were rude to me over the phone and talked to me as if I was just an annoying phone call, rather than an interested explorer. I asked about the length of a two mile hike to a certain beach, keeping in mind that I would have to carry all my camping supplies making the hike more difficult , and the ranger replied to me in a snooty way, "Well, if you really think two miles is...

Great advice from knowledgeable rangers. They can unwind the arcana of trying to make reservations online. Many parts of the park are not subject to quotas, so you can always get a permit for them. And even in the quota areas there are special sites not shown on recreation.gov due to unique availability or restrictions that the rangers can sometimes help you book. This year the lines are longer as the park contends with reduced staffing. Also fewer ranger reports on field conditions. Still a great service though. Also, free loans of bear canisters to keep your food in. Worth their weight in...