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Paul,
For camping on the Hoh take a look at Oxbow, just off the 101
bridge for convenience to the highway (very small number of sites) and
Cottonwood down the oil city road for a little more seclusion (a few more
sites.) I would expect both to be pretty full. No guarantees for the color of
the Hoh, if it is stays as cool as forecast, it would likely be
fishable from a glacier melt perspective, but then the rain may get you. The Hoh
will have kings, steelhead, dollies and sea-runs in it. In the past, I have fly
fished downstream and upstream of cottonwood, but the river moves around so much
that I am not sure what the water looks like currently. You can also run up
river above the highway and drive in any number of poorly marked access routes.
Depending on what the regs are like there is usually a lot less traffic up
there, as it is usually closed to retention of adult salmon.
As for other camping options - as Patrick mentioned the Queets
can be nice (again, if it is in shape) and should have summer runs and
cutthroat. There is a campground at the end of the road that can be a nice place
to camp (as quite as anywhere in the park in August...which is unfortunately not
that quiet). There is also a campground located up the clearwater road (copper
bottom I think.) No idea what you would find in the clearwater in August, its
bound to be VERY skinny.
There are two or three campgrounds in the Olympic National
Park around Klaloch lodge.
Around Forks, you have Bogachiel state park on the bogachiel
just north of the 101 bridge. The Bogie will have a collection of sea run
cutthroat and hatchery steelhead in its lower reaches.
On the sol duc there are three campgrounds to look at on 101,
tumbling rapids, Bear Creek and one other whose name escapes me (Klahanie?) I
like the Bear Creek campground as the spots are packed in slightly less densely.
It is located just north of the 112 cutoff road on the east side of the road 15
miles north of forks. It will have some summer salmon, wild (through-out) and
hatchery steelhead (lower sections) as well as some sea-runs. For camping on the
quillyute the National Park has several hundred sites located on/near the tide
water section of the river; the calawah is relatively devoid of camping options.
Forks has hotels, LaPush has a hotel. For food in Forks, I try not to eat out,
but if the urge strikes, I eat Chinese at the North-South Garden restaurant:
Decent fair with a good hot and sour soup. I have also eaten at the majority of
the other restaurant and none have been bad, but north south is the only one I
look forward to going to. The rain drop is a favorite of my
in-laws.
For all of the rivers I think that it is a tad early for great
sea run cutt fishing on the dry fly, but the fish should be starting to move in
to the systems in some decent numbers. The summer kings are there in small
numbers through-out all the systems, as are the wild summer-run steelhead and
the hatchery steelhead are generally planted lower in the systems, so do not
look for them way up in the headwaters...
Tight Lines,
Andy
PS My wife is from Forks and the in-laws are still there, so I
am out there a lot.
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- Hoh Hoh Hoh ;) Pdieterpro
- RE: Hoh Hoh Hoh ;) PATRICK PETERSEN
- Andy Towell
