Griffiths-Priday State Park - Copalis River Spit — Friday, Feb. 10, 2012

Southwest Washington > Long Beach Area

We read about this hike in Craig Romano's book, "Day Hiking Olympic Peninsula". To reach the TH go west from Hoquiam on SR 109 for 21 miles to Coplalis Beach turning left at the Green Lantern Tavern onto Benner Road. The park entrance is 0.2 miles. A Discovery Pass is required. Round trip is 4 miles, but we probably walked only 3 plus miles as the day was wet and windy. From the TH it is a .75 mile walk through grass covered dunes to the ocean. Where Conner Creek goes into the ocean one can usually access the ocean beach. However the trail appeared to have eroded away so we continued along the wide sometimes water-covered trail through the dunes for about another 1/2 mile before the trail turned to the beach. There were hundreds of shore birds along the edge of the ocean. The rain was blowing side ways so we were at the beach a very short time so never reached the Copalis River. The vegetation on the dunes was beautiful!