Camp out on the bank of Speelyai Creek in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Only two miles from two huge lakes (Merwin and Yale) great for kayaking, paddle boarding, and fishing. Try your hand at spelunking with a short 15 minute drive to the Ape Caves. Also plenty of hiking and sightseeing around Gifford Pinchot National Forest with amazing views of Mount St. Helens! Only an
Camp out on the bank of Speelyai Creek in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Only two miles from two huge lakes (Merwin and Yale) great for kayaking, paddle boarding, and fishing. Try your hand at spelunking with a short 15 minute drive to the Ape Caves. Also plenty of hiking and sightseeing around Gifford Pinchot National Forest with amazing views of Mount St. Helens! Only an hour drive from Portland and two and a half from Seattle.
There are two tent campsites on the property. They are both down a short trail from the upper gravel parking area. Your gear will need to be carried down and back out. Potable well water is available. There is a small porta-potty down the hill to use which is cleaned and emptied during your stay. Each tent campsite has seating, a hammock, and stone fire ring. Out of the sites, Site 1 is the larger and most spacious of the two. Larger parties will be given priority access to Site 1, but typically it is first come first serve. I will try my best to accommodate everyone upon check-in.
As mentioned by many of our previous campers, the property is located right next to State Route 503 which isn't overly busy, but it is constant and can get noisy. When you walk down to the campsites the noise is significally reduced and almost completely drowned out by sound of the creek, birds, and frogs!
It should also be noted that our two sites are close together and both are 100% kid-friendly! We welcome families with all age groups so if you would prefer to enjoy a quieter stay you might consider booking both sites and having the entire grounds to ensure a peaceful retreat.
- Check in: After 2PM
- Check out: Before 12PM
- Cancellation policy: Moderate
- On arrival: Meet and greet
- Minimum nights: 1 night
- Accepts bookings: 6 months out
- Response time: Within 6 hours
- Response rate: 100%
Activities
Offered on the Host's property or nearby.
Terrain
Natural features you'll find at Ariel Creekside in Washington.
The vibe at Ariel Creekside
Places to see near Quiet forest near Mt St Helens
We loved staying here! The hosts are wonderful. A few important things to understand before you book. Nothing bad, just understand the site and what to expect:
1. When you arrive, you'll be on an upper gravel-paved area with some buildings and a storage container. If you plan to car camp, you'll be up here close to a somewhat busy road.
2. HOWEVER, if you are tent camping, a short walk down the hill gets you to a wonderful oasis along a beautiful forested stream, complete with beaver dams. While there is still some road noise down here, it's no big deal and the sounds of birds and frogs and rushing water more than compensate. There's a campfire ring and we were provided with free firewood, plenty enough for roasting marshmallows.
3. RESTROOM: The toilet is in a small closet in a small building also used as a bunk house for the host's friendly children. It is a normal toilet, but there is no water feeding into it - a bucket of fresh water is awaiting for you to pour into the toilet when you have done your business, causing a flushing action. Easy, just don't be surprise by this setup. The bathroom was clean, and we had no issues with this setup. No sink, you'll have to wash up on your own unless you hear otherwise from the hosts.
3. The hosts have a wonderful young family of friendly kids. They will be happy to chat with you, if you are friendly (and you should be friendly!). They have two cute bunnies and some chickens, and are a great bunch of kids.
4. The hosts themselves are great people. They just arrived on this site last year, and are doing some really great things to improve it. Chat with them about their projects.
We thank them for their hospitality, and wish them the best of luck with HipCamp!
When we arrived, we were so surprised and amazed to be greeted by not only our two amazing hosts, but their FIVE kiddos, who all comfortably and willingly have built their home in a bus, and converted their nearby cabin-style sheds into awesome living spaces for everyone to spread out and be happy. We were reassured that campers would be able to have the lower creekside area (where the campsite is) quiet and secluded during a stay. The lower creekside campsite(s) are beautiful; spacious, clean and set right along the creekside. The sun was setting during our setting up, and the light during sunset turned the whole space golden. Hammocks, chairs and fire rings are already set up..this place was perfect!
This is a great location for exploring all that the Mt St Helens area has to offer! We enjoyed the opportunity to relax in one of two hammocks by the creek, have a campfire and visit with the owners, their kids and animals.
Beautiful creekside location and so close to the Ape Caves and Lava Canyon! The host family is an absolute delight and ready to answer any questions you have about the area and make your experience wonderful. We will definitely be back as guests at this campsite as there is no way we could do all the areas adventures in one weekend and the camping spot was spectacular!
The hosts were incredibly helpful and the campsites are located in a beautiful area next to a stream. I would definitely recommend others come here, but in order to help make this a better experience for everyone, I do have a few things I would like to share as feedback for the hosts and as things to keep in mind for potential campers.
1. There is a lot of road noise. The camp sites are down a small hill which blocks out some of the noise, but there are a lot of loud vehicles on this road and the sites are pretty close to the road.. The stream noise and frogs are a great distraction but, just axpect it to be loud at times. I was not very bothered by this, but this is something that should be clear on the listing. However, it is relatively quiet at night time.
2. There are going to be a lot of kids. There were kids running around and yelling the whole time and often playing right next to the camp site. Both sites are close together and the other campers had kids as we. This did get a little annoying at times, but mostly no big deal. My advice here is to level it as being a kid friendly place and have everyone expect to potentially have kids in their camp site.
3. The bathroom as available at the top of the hill, but kind of wakward to use as it is in a kids play house where the kids often were. It also closes at 9pm which we didn't expect. Just come prepared to maybe not have the bathroom accessible as you would like. Recommendation to the hosts to maybe have another option down below. Or some kind of bathroom separate from the kids.
4. There is a lot of wood around and lots of wood provided, but a lot of it is hard wood that doesn't seem to burn very easily. Youay want to bring some of your own wood depending on how much cooking you'll be needing and how many fires you want to have.
Overall this place is great! It's a beautiful area, the hosts are super nice and accommodating and I would recommend coming here. I also had a great time and got mostly what I expected. There may just be better terrible options if you're looking for a remote, peaceful getaway.
Thanks for staying with us this weekend and the helpful tips! We will be working on adding an outhouse down the hill for easier access. We do keep the kids up top with us and out of view of campsites while hosting, although they do play hard and enjoy meeting the campers. :-) We hope to see you back again when you are in the area!
Jane and her husband were very attentative and friendly! The property is gorgeous and despite a bit of rain, our camping trip was nothing short of incredible. It’s situated fairly close to dozens of hiking trails and the Ape Caves.
Wow...love those pictures! So glad y’all enjoyed your stay. 🙂
- Property
- Ariel Creekside
- State
- Washington
- $35/night
- 2 Sites
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So glad to have had you as our first hipcamper! We've definitely learned a lot the past two months. We now have running water to the bunkhouse and have added a porta-potty down the hill for nighttime use. Thank you so much for your helpful review!