Review

Cape Disappointment State Park is located on the Washington side of the mouth of the Columbia River. The campground is situated a few miles off of the 101 freeway, and sites are either located near a lake or near the beach.

This campground has full hookup and electric/water sites, plus no hookup sites. There is a dump station near Loops A and B. As with other Washington State Parks, there was little signage to indicate how to get to the campground, but we followed the main road (Hwy 100) and eventually ended up at the campground kiosk.

Sites vary in size, amount of trees and bushes, and availability of hookups. Other than difficulty finding the place, the check-in process was smooth even though we were early for check-in (which is listed as 2:30 pm). We unhooked in front of our site.

Site D-215 and D-210 are large, fairly-level back-in sites on grass. When we made our reservations three months ago, there were no hookup-sites available, but we rode our bikes around and looked at the other loops. Loop A has all the full hookup sites, and many of the sites are close to the beach. Loop B has some electric/water sites, and some without hookups, and we liked the location and set-up of the Loop B sites a lot (most are close to the beach). Loop C sites do not have hookups but are close to the beach. Loop D (where we were) is not that close to the beach, but borders Lake O’Neill, so we had a peekaboo water view.

The campground is close to beach access and several hiking trails, plus level bike rides on the campground road. It’s only a few miles from the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse and Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center.

We road our bikes to the beach, at least up to the sand dunes, and had a nice view of the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse. We also hiked to the North Head Lighthouse, which gave beautiful views of the coast and giant fir trees. On our second stay, we hiked to the Cape Disappointment Lighthouse from the campground.

We would stay here again on the way to or from Harstine Island, though we would try to get a site nearer to the beach and with at least partial hookups. We hear these sites book up 9 months in advance.