We had a wonderful hike at Griffiths-Priday State Park. The weather was perfect, sunny and dry, and it wasn’t very windy. Grass dunes – the path through the grass dunes was fun hike. The path had washed away in several places but new paths had been made through the sand dunes to get around those spots. The only difference in those sections was the path went from doublewide to single file. The path was dry for us but we could see spots where, if it rained recently, there could be water on the trail. Beach – once we hit the beach we walked up to the river spit. The walking was very easy as the sand was wet enough to be very well packed. We only saw a few people on the beach and they were all fishing, once we started hiking out to the spit, it was completely solitary. The hike isn’t very long so we followed the road 8 miles north to Pacific Beach and did some more walking. There were a lot more people at this beach, and it was pretty windy but next time we are going to bring our kite as Pacific Beach has perfect flying conditions. Note: be sure to bring hand sanitizer as the Griffiths-Priday State Park’s bathrooms don’t provide soap.

We spent almost four hours exploring this great park. The trail in the dunes has some places that have washed away but the trail re-routes just inland. It's interesting to see how the water continually erodes the land as the rivers enter the ocean. We saw a pallet marked Sapporo on the beach and wondered if it came from Japan via tsunami. As usual at the ocean, it was windy.

We hiked to the Copalis River at the tip of the spit for a total of 4 miles RT. At about 1 1/4 miles we took a trail west (There's a red oil bucket at the junction.) through the dunes to the ocean where we walked the hard sand beach to the river. There were several shore birds along the beach. This was a very pleasant, peaceful, and easy hike on a beautiful, sunny, and cold day! We saw only 2 other hikers who only went about 3/4 of a mile. After returning to the parking lot we hiked to the pedestrian bridge and walked to Copalis Beach where there were hundreds digging for razor clams!

We found the trail behind the bathrooms at Griffiths-Priday State Park. I started out by exclaiming that the weather report was wrong and it was a nice day for a hike. We made it about a mile to the beach after the creek was gone and I felt the first rain drop. We started to walk down the beach toward Copalis Rock but the weather had turned. I think it would have been more pleasant with some sun. But overall it was a nice easy winter hike. There were two areas that I was glad I had my rubber boots on the trail. They were really just big puddles.

On the first morning of our New Year's trip to the North Beach area, we woke to the bluest skies and brightest sun that I'd seen since October. We packed up the kids and headed out early to Griffiths-Priday State Park to enjoy the day and the low tide. From the parking lot the trail is not intuitive. Head to the far side of the picnic tables or simply walk to the gate on the road and head north along Conner Creek. On this day, the winter sun cast long shadows and illuminated the golden grasses. It was beautiful walking in the small grassy dunes. We walked until the path started to braid out and get more brushy, and then headed back, crossing a pedestrian bridge to the south of the park and walking along Copalis Beach.