Seaquest State Park

We mistakenly parked in the RV Loop the first night (T13 vs 13) and fortunately, the folks who had reserved that spot weren't arriving until the next day. We got it all straightened out the next morning, and our spot in the main campground was actually much prettier. We were glad we weren't in a larger rig, though, because the roads through the main campground are VERY tight, and we watched, cringing, as some big rigs made their way through the trees.

Although this is the nearest state park to Mount St. Helens, it is still 50 miles to the national park itself, and if you don't have a toad, it can be a bit inconvenient to travel between the two places. You will also need the appropriate parks pass for the national park or pay a daily fee to park in the lot.

Seaquest itself has a nice visitors center, gift shop, and a coffee/shave ice stand outside that operates seasonally and on weekends. There is a nice trail, approximately one mile, around Silver Lake through the marshlands. There is abundant wildlife in the marshes including Great Blue Herons, all variety of waterfowl, fish, frogs, etc. You can see the mountain in the distance from the trail.

In the park itself, there are trails through the woods and a partial forest service road connection. We used them for some trail running and encountered almost no other people while out and about in the woods.

Negatives: distance from the mountain, no doggie poo bags available, the swing set in the playground nearest to us desperately needed to be oiled!

Positives: pretty wooded trails, nice trail around the lake, good Visitors Center

We camped in the "RV Loop" , which was like a parking lot with only a strip of grass/gravel separating you from your neighbor. We found it to be crowded and noisy, even at the end of August, on a Monday. We would recommend checking out the North or South loop pull through sites, which offer more privacy. The park is beautiful and wooded and we had a hiking trail right next to our site. The campground is also conveniently located right across the street from the Mt. St. Helens Visitor center and Johnstons Ridge Observatory was about an hour away. We were charged a Washington State recreation fee of $5 and a reservation fee of $8 for booking online. Cell coverage was really spotty here, we could get 1 bar of LTE if we stood in certain spots, but otherwise it was non existent.