Fairholme Campground

Not sure how we got a spot but we did! Came in on a Monday. By the time we were packing up, we had 7 people asking for our spot. I loved the feel of this park, like we were in the rainforest. Lots of big trees and ferns all around. Real close to Lake Crescent (the water was beautiful!)and a small store (we picked up chips and beer). You can also rent kayaks and canoes there. Our view was obstructed from the smoke due to the wild fires in B.C. Real bummer. Bathrooms were nice-BUT no soap to wash your hands!

No showers here/dry camping only

Seems to be quite popular too.

Lake Cresent makes for a beautiful setting with its crystal clear blue waters surrounded by lush rain forest. The beauty of this camp area is post card worthy.

Fairholme campground is easily accessed right off Hwy 101. It is a large campground with 3 loops and hundreds of sites. We found the C loop best suited for RV's. Site 53, that we had, was great. There were plenty of sites to fit RV's, but really big class A's might have a problem. This is a pay campground so it has better amenities. There were flush toilets with lights and sinks. Also dumpsters available. There was a RV dump and fill located at the boat dock for a $10 dollar fee.

The lake is great to fish, kayak, SUP, or dive. Which we did all of in one day. Wish we had more time to hang out here. There is also a hiking trail that we did not get to.

Cell coverage was not great. We had 2 bars of 3G, but it was spotty. Also there was not much chance of solar charging here, a few spots had better sun than others.

This place is a gem at the edge of the Crescent Lake. You get to experience 2 different sections of Olympic NP in one campground. First, you are camping in a rainforest setting, just like the one you would find at Hoh. Second, you have the beautiful, mesmerizing glacier water lake, Crescent Lake, just a stone throw away from your campsite. Large, spacious pads also make this place a good deal for your money. Let’s look at the pros and cons:

Cons:
- Mosquitos galore. I hate mosquitos. In my book, they have a special place in hell where they are tortured day and night.
- Uneven pads. Bring some leveling blocks if you have an RV
- Terrible solar generation. You will not generate solar due to the treetops.

Pros
- Clean bathrooms
- Large pads. There are some smaller ones available too.
- Breathtaking scenery
- Friendly camphost
- Right next to the lake

We came during COVID at the last minute during the week and found many sites open. About half the sites were available at 6pm on a Sunday evening. Also, dump is $10 (cheaper with your Access pass and so on). During COVID season, you can only pay with a credit card that you will write your credit card number on an envelope and put in their pay box or through their pay.gov site (might be pay.org.... cant remember). We had Verizon 1 LTE bar and were able to boost it to 5 LTE bars (one of our best boosts to date). You are about 45 minutes away from Port Angeles, 30 minutes to Sol Duc visitors center, and about 1 hour to Forks. It’s a nice middle ground to most of Olympic NP.

As other reviews have noted, Fairholme Campground is well-situated for many of the popular activities along Lake Crescent. Located just above the lake on the hill, there are a ton of campsites for tent camping and many that would easily accommodate all but the largest of RVs.

Sites vary in size, but are generally spacious and semi-private separated by mature growth and trees. There are three loops, but loop C will get you closest to the lake with peekaboo views.

For how popular this campground is, it’s a wonder they don’t have a reservation system. The camp was full nearly all week long. We arrived around 11:30 am on a Monday and it was 75% full. It was full by evening and remained full all week. Cars and campers circle repeatedly hoping to snag a spot from someone leaving, and on our check-out day we were approached by three different people asking for our spot. In the end, someone paid for our site before we had even vacated it - hoping to block everyone else out of it first.

We had two bars on Verizon but only in the camping area for tents near the lake. No bars at our site (62) and no bars for AT&T.

Pros:
- Idyllic area with amazing views and tons to do in the surrounding park
- Spacious sites, well treed
- Beach area and boat launch for easy access to the lake

Cons
- SO MUCH TRAFFIC NOISE. This campground is right off Hwy 101 and the traffic sounds are all day and well into the night. The logging trucks are very loud and constant starting at 2 am and running until 6 pm or so.
- So busy. This place is so busy and popular that we even witnessed a scam in the site across from us where a woman left two chairs behind on her last day, and never returned. Eventually someone moved the chairs and took the spot as it hadn’t been paid for by 1 pm — but then two men showed up later in the evening claiming it was their chairs and their spot. It could’ve been quite an altercation.
- Uneven sites, definitely bring your levelers and a lot of them.

In all, I wouldn’t visit this campground if you’re “looking to get away from it all” but it’d be great if you just want a place to crash while you do all the touristy stuff around.

Tip: If this still sounds like the place for you, plan to show up early in the week and a few hours before check-out (9-10 am) to scout the sites on the board scheduled to be vacated and cross your fingers. Good luck!

We just returned from 5 nights here. Let me preface by saying this is our first experience at a US National Park campground in the last 8 years.

Positives:
-It was a great location for exploring the Northern end of Olympic National Park. We were able to do day visits to the Hoh Rainforest, Rialto Beach and La Push, Cape Flattery and area and Hurricane Ridge.
-Easy to get to - right off Hwy 101
-Lake access was great.
-Sani dump on location.
-The forested location and beautiful lake were lovely.
-The sites themselves were clean and picked up between campers.

Negatives:
-the sites are very unlevel. It took several attempts to get our trailer in a position that was level for the 5 days we were there. Not just getting the trailer level but you would have to brace things put on the picnic table as it was slopped also. And getting chairs to a flat spot was very challenging - it is on a hill so everything slopes.
-the restroom situation is not sufficient. Loop A had closed restrooms and outhouses (that were in horrible condition) loop B's restrooms were really serving both loops along with the day use area as they don't have one. That is three stalls for two loops plus a very, very crowded day use area on the weekend. The restrooms have no soap which has been mentioned but was also just not well kept up and cleaned we felt.
-the noise from hwy 101 is constant and many, many times overnight you will hear the logging trucks applying their brakes coming down the hill beside the campground. There is no getting around it as it is so close to the hwy. I will say there was not a lot of late-night noise from other campers which was great.
-there is a boat launch on-site and a small dock area for swimming with a small parking lot. We were there over a very warm weekend in August and that area was filled with a couple of hundred people and all their cars there for day use. This made access to the Sani dump (which is in that parking lot) impossible. Plus as mentioned above - all those people are using the campground restrooms.
-the garbage dumpsters were so full they were overflowing at times, especially the ones closest to the day use area and walk-in sites. I think this might be a result of day use using these also. They stayed that way for a couple of days and would be an attractant to wildlife for sure.

Summary: We would stay again for an overnight as we moved through the area. For an extended stay, we found more negatives than positives - Which makes me very sad to say it. We love the National Parks of Canada and the US. Perhaps we are seeing the results of being grossly underfunded - we are not sure. We are from Canada so don't know the complete picture of funding. We believe that could be the case as we also came to ranger stations not staffed and many areas that were showing that infrastructure could not keep up with the demand as in almost every location the restrooms were in pretty dire need of upkeep, garbages were overflowing etc.

Olympic National Park is a stunningly diverse and beautiful National Park and we were so glad we had a chance to visit and explore it and would recommend it to anyone considering it. If the neglect of locations that we have seen is truly due to funding we truly hope that these gems are better-funded once again n the future!

This is a primitive camp sight and not for larger rigs. I’ve got a 30’ LOA travel trailer and 22’ Tow vehicle and I will say it was tight. Doable, but tight. The site we had was a pull through but due to the turn, we backed it in. It was just easier. The site is dirt and mostly level. Good fire pit and table. The way it set up the pit and table are to the right side of the rig. We were under trees that cave us good shade but impeed our solar panels from charging the batteries causing us to run the generator for a period of time. I hate having to do that in such a quiet place.

The campground accepts reservations for a certain time of the year the remainder is FCFS so check the Recreation.gov site well in advance.

The bathroom was clean and plenty of trash bins around the camp site.

The lake is amazing!! Plus there is a general store that is stocked with the necessities and extremely over priced.