It should come as no surprise to learn that the folks in Lewis County find most of their outdoor fun close to home. From fishing lakes and rivers to picking blackberries to family campouts, a few miles from almost any home provides a wonderful getaway. When people around here really need a change of scene, they strike out for “The Beach,” our next-door tie to the great Pacific.
You might want to take a cue from those who have made outdoor adventure a regular part of life. A trip to the beach offers an almost endless variety of experiences. It takes just ninety minute’s drive and a few dollars to add so much to our recreation experience.
Visitors to the beaches from the Columbia River north to the Strait of Juan de Fuca will encounter all kinds of shore environments, each with a unique character and a different approach to exploration. There are wide hard-sand beaches at Long Beach — the world’s longest unbroken, drivable beach — Twin Harbors, Copalis, Mocrocks, and Kalaloch. Long Beach, Twin Harbors, and Copalis are quite well developed, the Mocrocks beaches are less so, and Kalaloch is part of the U.S. National Park system and are maintained in a pristine state with few amenities.
The docks at Westport house all sorts of fishing and recreational boats. Photo by The Chronicle.
Many of the visits by local residents coincide with abundant season for razor clams, bottomfish, crabs, and anadromous stocks of river-bound salmon and steelhead. Seasons for halibut and huge lingcod are very popular as well. Visitors in 2008 may not get a chance to fish for coastal Pacific salmon from the ports at Ilwaco, Westport, La Push or Neah Bay; poor ocean conditions in 2006-07 have resulted in low salmon abundance and seasons are very limited this year. Razor clamming at Kalaloch is closed this year during a rebuilding effort on coastal stocks.
Beachcombing is a prime sport on the coast at any time, but is especially fruitful at the end of winter and in the more remote coves and inlets along the beach. Prowling the high tide lines and windswept dunes may reveal a treasure from some faraway spot in the far Pacific. Shops and museums have hundreds of exotic finds on display, gleaned during a common walk on the beach after a storm.
Hikers and explorers often spend their beach time on the remote beaches north of the Quinault Indian Reservation below Kalaloch and further north. The National Park beaches are reached by well-graded trails from marked parking areas and provide the solitary experience that epitomizes a wild ocean environment. Reefs and massive offshore rock structures known as “sea stacks” give these northern beaches a drama and spectacle unique to the North Pacific coast.
Trails explore the beaches and others lead through moss-draped rainforests upland of the sea. Some of the trails are along the many coastal rivers that seldom see frost or snow. They are usually fairly wet, but can usually be hiked at any time of the year.
Many travelers time at least one visit for the winter and early spring, when coastal storms drive thundering waves over the bedrock shore in a timeless battle to reshape the edge of the earth.
Open clamming days give western Washington families a great opportunity to forage for some fresh seafood, and are very popular along the beaches. Photo by The Chronicle.
Camping on the coast is whatever you wish it to be. You may choose a luxurious cabin or suite with a spa, in-room Jacuzzi, and gourmet room service. At the other end of the camping spectrum, you may choose a remote hike-in tent camp washed with ocean spray and the immediacy of rain and wind. It’s up to you; most of us pick something in between!
The outer coast has literally hundreds of hotel and motel rooms, casinos, cottages, state and national parks. Private campgrounds, B&Bs, and time share condos are more options, or you can park your RV at any of hundreds of sites all up and down the coast.
Wildlife watching is another especially rewarding activity at the coast, with something of interest almost every week of the year. You may find herds of elk along the road to Tokeland, pods of huge Gray whales passing from the calving grounds in the Baja to feeding areas in Alaska. Hundreds of the great beasts pass quite near the shore; you’ll see their telltale spouts before you see the whale breach for air.
Literally thousands of visitors converge on Grays Harbor at Hoquiam every April for the Shorebird Festival. As many as a half-million migrant shorebirds stop at the Grays Harbor National Wildlife Area to rest and feed on their journeys to the summering grounds in the arctic. The round-trip of some tern species is 15,000 miles, the longest migration feat known. During the three-day festival it is possible to see a quarter million birds, as well as the predators that are also attracted to the spectacle. Among those are Peregrine falcons, the fastest of all birds, sometimes swooping for a kill in excess of two-hundred miles per hour!
A side-trip to the beach is important to anyone, visitor or resident, to understand and enjoy this land of contrasts. The splendor of the mountains and the fascination of the ocean are near enough that local folks and visitors can enjoy both — even in this age of record-high fuel costs — without seriously bending the vacation budget. It is fortunate that both are still practical choices for any family vacation.