Salt Creek County Park
IBA (Important Birding Area)
Directions: From Port Angeles, follow US 101 west for 5.4 miles turning right onto State Route 112. Continue for 7.2 miles turning right at Milepost 54 onto Camp Hayden Road. Then drive 3.4 miles turning right into Salt Creek County Park.
Ownership: Clallam County Parks
Trail Distance: 1.0 mile of trail, more than a mile of beaches and tidepools
Difficulty: easy trails, use caution exploring tidepools.
Fees/Permits: none
Notes: Kid-friendly, dogs permitted on leash. water, restrooms, picnic grounds and camping available.
A former World War II US Army Coastal Artillery Camp, today the 198-acre Salt Creek County Park is a popular outdoor recreation area. Adjacent to the Tongue Point Marine Sanctuary and its flowerpot sea stacks and sandy beach on Crescent Bay, Salt Creek is also a topnotch birdwatching location. You can easily observe waders, dabblers and divers from a bluff top trail and viewpoints above a series of tide pools on the park’s Strait of Juan de Fuca shoreline. When the tide is low, take to a series of staircases leading to beaches, and rocky shelves for better viewing.
Along the shore watch for harlequin ducks, rhinoceros auklets, marbled murrelets, black oystercatchers, pigeon guillemots, and black turnstones. Loons frequent Crescent Bay from the fall through spring. Bald eagles are ubiquitous in the park. Hike the park’s wooded trails or the adjacent trails in the Striped Peak DNR property and look for woodpeckers, vireos, and Wilson’s and orange-crowned warblers.
