Annoyed by crowded hikes and campgrounds in Washington state? There are apps for that

The population boom in Western Washington has brought us housing shortages and traffic jams. It’s also brought crowds to some of the region’s most iconic trails and campgrounds, including Mount Rainier.

That can make it hard to find a campsite, or a trail that isn’t teeming with people. KUOW looked at three apps or websites that aim to make your quest for the perfect hike or camping spot more successful.

If you’ve ever tried to go hiking at a popular trail on a busy summer day, it can feel like going to Costco on Christmas Eve. It’s really hard to find parking.

Mary Ann Smith likes to visit Mount Rainier.

“Well, because of the summer, you know, everybody wants to come out and see the mountain, and hike up there," she says. "It gets packed. And we can circle around for quite a while.”

There’s been a surge of interest in the outdoors ever since the pandemic. Social media tends to drive people to certain picturesque bridges in front of certain waterfalls.

Mount Rainier Ranger and head planner Teri Tucker describes what happens when people crowd onto the mountain’s wildflower meadows: “They’re stepping off the trail, to go around the group in front of them, or they’re looking to frame a photograph without a thousand of their new best friends in the photo with them.”

Stepping off the trail kills the fragile flowers and stomps down the soil, “and it can take decades for those meadows to restore.”

RELATED: Mount Rainier visitors react to new timed entrance reservation policy

I

f you show up to a trail anywhere in Washington and it’s too crowded, there’s an app for that.

The Washington Trails Association’s Trailblazer app can help you find another hike nearby.

"I understand being encouraged to go somewhere else might be a little frustrating," says WTA's Anna Roth. "But one nice thing about the trail systems in the kind of I-90, Middle Fork, Puget Sound area is there's, there's always a trail nearby, right? "

Many hiking areas have poor cellphone service, so Roth recommends downloading trails near yours into a favorites folder known as "MyBackpack." That way, they're available offline when you need them.

B

ut what if you want to go camping at Deception Pass State Park on the 4th of July weekend? That’s the most popular state campground, on the most popular weekend.

Reservations there are going to disappear within a few minutes after they're released. But a fully booked campsite isn't necessarily a closed door.

For that, we’ve got bots. But they’re not doing what you think — they can’t make reservations for you.

What they can do is scour the park website, and send you a text message when someone cancels their campsite reservation. And the person who clicks through and nabs the site fastest, wins.

You hire the bots through a website like Campnab.

The Dyrt, which considers itself the Yelp for campsites, offers a similar service, but its bots don't yet cover parks managed by Washington state.

Campnab's Eric Karjaluoto says the trick is to act right away.

“I set a custom ringtone on my phone," he says. "I set it to wake me up in the middle of the night. I don't silence alerts for campsites, especially if it's a place I really want to go.”

The official state and federal campground reservation websites will send you similar alerts by email for free.

I

f all that fails – you can always stay in a farmer’s field.

There’s an app and website called Hipcamp.

While it offers some other services, like alerts, it's real strength is that it's basically Airbnb for campsites.

Lauren Bunde works for Hipcamp. She says all kinds of people are finding corners of their land to put campsites on.

“People who have, you know, an apple orchard, maybe they have a cidery and then they created an area on their site for hip campers to come because that also helps drive people to their cidery, their winery, and places like that," Bunde says. "Others you do end up kind of directly in like a farm area with, um, cows.”

In The Dyrt's 2024 Camping Report, it found that the supply of private campsites is starting to catch up with demand.

As with Airbnbs, it's hard to know exactly what you're getting through Hipcamp.

In an episode of Booming, KUOW's Monica Nickelsburg related a story where the Hipcamp location she visited wasn't anything like it looked in the photos.

RELATED: Hear the full camping and hiking episode of KUOW's Economy podcast, "Booming" below. Subscribe on your favorite podcast player.

Some of these technological solutions cost money.

But there are still ways to find a camping spot that won’t empty your wallet.

There are lesser known campsites, that maybe don’t have those Instagram shots nearby, but still have their charms.

Or you can look for campsites on less popular days, during the week if you can get the time off, or in September, when the weather's still nice but many schools have started, so there are fewer families out there.

And if you do get caught in a crowd, just remember: They are people who love the outdoors just like you do.