Frisco Campground beach trail west

Best Time to Visit the Frisco Campground West Boardwalk

Campers use this boardwalk for swims, surf checks, and sunrise walks out to the Atlantic, and any of those makes for a good reason to cross it. The main thing to plan around is weather: like the rest of NC-12 and the villages strung along it, this stretch of coast is fully exposed to the Atlantic, and conditions can shift fast during hurricane season, which runs from August through October. If your visit falls in that window, keep an eye on forecasts and be ready for conditions to change during your stay.

Trail Tips for the Frisco Campground West Boardwalk

• Take advantage of the campground's low dunes and scrub for some shade along the way — Frisco offers more cover and privacy than the seashore's other campgrounds.

Getting to the Frisco Campground West Boardwalk

This boardwalk is located inside Frisco Campground on Hatteras Island, just west of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, within Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It's the west entry of the campground's two elevated boardwalks, reached on foot from within the campground. Because it's a pedestrian route only, anyone driving to the beach instead needs the separate ORV ramp at the campground entrance, which requires a valid Cape Hatteras National Seashore ORV permit.

What to Expect on the Frisco Campground Beach Trail West

The west boardwalk at Frisco Campground is an elevated wooden walkway that carries pedestrians over the dune line and out to the Atlantic. It's one of two boardwalks built into this campground within Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and it runs longer than most campground beach accesses on Hatteras Island — figure close to a quarter mile of decking before the sand actually opens up. That extra length means the walk out and back takes noticeably more time than a typical beach access on Hatteras Island, so pace yourself accordingly on the way to and from the water.