Port Angeles - My Home Town
My Dad worked at Crown Zellerbach paper mill there for 47 years. Various others in the family were also papermakers. My brother-in-law worked at Rayonier Mill when I married my husband. It closed a few years ago and left many townsfolk unemployed. Fibreboard Mill was the third in town; it is no longer there either. Papermaking, logging, fishing and tourism were the main livelihoods back in the mid-1900's. The mills have dwindled to one, fishing and logging is not what it used to be, but tourism is still strong.
Take a drive out to Tongue Point or Freshwater Bay to hike the beaches and trails or fish. Drive to Hurricane Ridge in the summer to hike and picnic, in the winter to ski (VERY SMALL SKI AREA) past Heart of the Hills where I used to ice skate as a kid. It's just 18 miles from town. In the summer you will see deer and marmots if you sit still long enough while you are picnicing on the beautiful mountainside. In the winter the plowed snow will tower over your car. The views are awesome in any season. Go on up to Obstruction Point and witness blue snow!
Port Angeles is a good starting place for tourists as they visit other sites. A drive to Lake Ozette is a trip to the past as you hike out to the awesome beach and the archeological Indian digs. You can do a round-trip nine-mile hike which takes you three miles down the beach, if I remember right; or a six-mile hike to the beach and back the same way. There are lots of places to visit in nearby Olympic National Park such as the easy hike to Marymere Falls by Lake Crescent.
If you like some learning with your wanderings, then visit the Olympic Park Institute, a non-profit educational organization at the park for your use. Take classes on building a willow chair, learn about wildflowers, backpack along miles of beaches, learn about Mt. Rainier, paint in nature, learn about the Klallam Indians. The list goes on. Visit the site and book a class now.
The Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce is a good place to learn about what's around to see within a day's drive. Lots. Kalaloch Beach, The Rain Forest, LaPush, Forks (the infamous town where the loggers ran the Hell's Angels bikers out of town some years back), the Olympic Game Farm
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