Porcupine (AK)

I made an online reservation at Porcupine Campground 4 months ago for site 14. We arrived in Hope at Porcupine to find my reservation posted at site 14 and another car parked there. They were not present in the campsite , we found out later they had parked in our reserved spot and had hiked out Gull rock trail to camp. Obviously this was very disheartening as site 14 is a special spot and had been reserved for a memorial occasion .

Beautiful views, wonderful hiking… Close to a historic town.

Great little area, most sites offer very good privacy.

This was our first time camping at a national park in the US, so maybe I just didn’t know what to expect… if you’re looking to just pull up your RV for a night or two I’m sure it’s fine. Park was clean and sites had good privacy.

We were tent camping (probably the only ones in the park with a tent), but had to set up on the asphalt pad because there was nowhere on the site to set up a tent. Maybe other sites had space, but when you book online there are zero photos of what the sites look like. We pre-booked and selected tent, it would’ve been helpful for the booking page to show only sites that had proper space for tents. There was a deep campfire ring (we could barely see the fire), and a huge picnic table that we couldn’t move at all.

There were no issues finding our site when we got there, but I’m used to having a camp store or registration where you can at least speak with someone or browse a little store. There is a staff site, but we never saw anyone there.

The washrooms were vault toilets, decently clean (for a vault toilet), but no sinks. We couldn’t get water from the taps (only tried one of them), but had brought some of our own anyways so it wasn’t an issue.

We hiked the gull rock trail which was moderately maintained, but there wasn’t much else to do there. We went to the Dirty Skillet in Hope for dinner which was great!! We had hoped that we could get down to the water since the park is so close, but there was no beach or anything that we could find.

Sites at this campground are becoming overgrown and it looks like no maintenance has been done in years. At the end of June, there had been no maintenance to clear brush or devils club around campsites, to have space to pitch tents or enjoy a campfire by the ring. The plants are growing into the road, specifically devils club which can give people blisters if there’s sun exposure following contact. If you get a campsite looking out at Turnagain Arm/water, it’s obscured now by high brush and devils club. Super sad to see this, given they are putting money into building another cabin but no money spent to maintain the campground.

Very private, quiet camping spot.

A very nice campground with clean sites and restrooms. Black bears do frequent the campground. We had one eating berries 8’ from our camper. It Is THIER backyard so be bear aware.

The was a black bear in the campsite but the host was very clear with what needed to be done. So many raspberries!! Excellent views, great fishing, and really close to a great concert venue and experience.

We love staying there. Weather was good. Just fun to sit around the campfire. Thanks for a great time. Ice Cream bars in town wer good too and watching the fishermen.

Clean but a bit overgrown trail to campsite.