Griffiths-Priday State Park is just nine miles south of Pacific Beach State Park and six miles north of Ocean City State Park, completing an ocean beach trifecta that we’re lucky to have in Washington. But there is something about Griffiths-Priday that keeps drawing me back. It’s less crowded, less developed, more wild.
Getting past the invaders
Mr. Adventure, MizFitz, Dewey the dog, and I ate a picnic lunch under a shelter next to the parking lot, then set out on a trail that appeared to lead to the beach. It did, eventually, but first we had to push through perhaps a mile of hot, sandy, shrubby path. “Listen,” MizFitz said, pausing. I heard a crackling sound, as if I were standing near a bowl of Rice Krispies. “It’s the Scotch broom seedpods popping open,” she explained. An invasive plant brought to the Northwest as an ornamental and later used for erosion control, Scotch broom pushes out native species as it takes over dunes and disturbed open areas. Its seeds remain viable for decades, spreading when the seedpods pop open during warm weather and allowing the plant to establish new strongholds. Hillsides of Scotch broom are a common sight along highways. In bloom, some consider the plant’s yellow flowers pretty, but I cringe when I see it. We kept moving.
To our left, we saw a waterway twisting toward the ocean. This is Connor Creek, easy to cross in warm weather, especially on the broad beach where it meets the ocean. The ridge flattened out into a meadow of dune plants, and we stepped onto the beach.
Griffiths-Priday’s beach is, in a word, lovely. The state park encompasses Copalis Spit, the long tongue of land between the river and the ocean. It is a natural area, and motorized vehicles are not allowed.
Wilderness, refuge, sanctuary
Following the spit north to the mouth of the Copalis River, we spotted Copalis Rock in the ocean, about a thousand feet out. It’s part of the Washington Islands Wilderness, about 600 islands (most of them small rock outcroppings) designated by Congress in 1970 and, atypically, closed to public access. The wilderness protects habitat for some of the largest seabird colonies in the lower 48, including more than 70 percent of Washington’s seabirds. Tufted puffins and rhinoceros auklets nest on the rocks, while sea otters and seals swim in the nutrient-rich waters below. Protected otter habitat seems especially poignant to me, because a weathered bronze plaque in the parking lot reads, somewhat cryptically, “Sea Otters Hunter’s Stand: This is the only remaining location known to have been used by the sea otter hunters.” No other context is provided, but I’m happy to know that the charismatic critters once again swim offshore, now safeguarded by a vast wilderness.
The wilderness area is one of several layers of protection. It is wholly contained within the Washington Maritime National Wildlife Refuge Complex, established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 and comprising the Copalis, Quillayute Needles, and Cape Flattery refuges. Together, these contain nearly 900 islands that provide habitat for a million shorebirds and are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Copalis is the southernmost, and Copalis Rock is just about the southern edge of the refuge. And those refuges are wholly contained within the much larger Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary, which stretches about 160 miles from the Copalis River to Cape Flattery and covers 3,188 square miles of ocean. That’s an area bigger than Delaware, almost impossible to comprehend from my spot on the beach.
Airport on the beach
The Copalis River empties into the Pacific here, dividing the spit from the mainland. The beach across the river to the north is actually a state airport, the only one on a Washington ocean beach, managed by the Washington State Department of Transportation. We spotted the bright orange wind sock through the mist, but no planes.
The Copalis River ghost forest
Walking further, we peered down the river shoreline but didn’t explore further on foot. The best way to see the Copalis River is in a kayak or canoe, and there’s an access site upstream. In a boat, it’s possible to paddle to the Ghost Forest, a 120-acre forest of standing dead Western redcedar trees managed by State Parks that added new understanding to earthquakes and tsunamis caused by plate tectonics.
Plate tectonics theory posits that the earth’s outer crust is composed of enormous plates that move around, creating continents and landforms, like mountains. The plates move relative to each other, some colliding and others moving apart. When one plate moves under another, it creates a subduction zone. The plates are locked together, and when enough pressure builds at the subduction zone, the plates can slip, causing earthquakes. Subduction zone earthquakes are the most powerful temblors, and when one occurs in the ocean, the sudden dropping of the sea floor causes tsunamis.
Although the theory of plate tectonics was first proposed in the early 20th century, research in the 1950s and 1960s helped prove its validity. Scientists are still learning a lot about how plate tectonics works. A magnitude 9.2 earthquake shook Alaska in 1964 and a 8.0 earthquake devastated Mexico City in 1985. Both were subduction zone earthquakes, and the Alaska quake caused a destructive tsunami. In the 1980s, geologists began to explore estuaries and bays along the Washington coast, looking for evidence of massive earthquakes in the Pacific Northwest along the area from northern Vancouver Island to Cape Mendocino in northern California. This is the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the offshore area where the Juan de Fuca Plate subducts under the North American Plate.
U.S. Geological Survey geologist Brian Atwater and dendrochronologist David Yamaguchi looked at the standing dead trees in the Ghost Forest for clues. Soil layers and tree rings showed the trees had been rapidly submerged in salt water, which eventually killed them. The scientists examined historical evidence that recorded an “orphan tsunami” that occurred in Japan without a corresponding earthquake, and sifted through native oral histories that recorded ocean flooding. The evidence helped Atwater and Yamaguchi pinpoint the magnitude 9.0 quake to 9:00 p.m. on January 26, 1700, and determine that it had dropped the ground six feet and caused a tsunami that washed sand-laden salt water inland, plunging the roots of standing trees in salt water.
The Ghost Forest research “completely rewrote our understanding of earthquake risk here in the Northwest,” according to Central Washington University geology professor Nick Zentner, host of the popular public television series Nick on the Rocks. It dramatically expanded understanding of what happens on the surface when a subduction zone earthquake occurs.
The Big One is coming
The Ghost Forest proves that massive subduction quakes occur regularly in intervals from a few hundred to a thousand years. It’s been 300 years since the last big one in the Pacific Northwest, so the question is not if but when. The work conducted at the Ghost Forest and other coastal sites helps communities prepare, to the extent possible, for the inevitable. Seismic monitoring is part of the preparation, as are earthquake drills and those blue and white “Tsunami Evacuation Route” road signs posted all over along the coast.
All of this — the marine wilderness, the ghost forest, the geology — adds to Griffiths-Priday’s natural allure, but none of it is obvious while soaking up the sun on the warm sand. We wandered the beach, letting MizFitz’s dog sniff every crab carcass, and eventually turned back. We’d passed the dune trail and decided to find a place to cross Connor Creek, maybe 30 feet across.
Doggone it!
Rolling up our pants, MizFitz turned to me. “Dewey doesn’t like water,” she said. We were going to be about knee-deep, which for a dog of Dewey’s size is no problem, as long as the dog is willing. At 80 pounds, if Dewey didn’t want to cross, it was going to be difficult to convince him.
MizFitz went first while Dewey and I watched. “See, Dewey,” I encouraged him, “no problem!” We started across, Dewey plunking in his paws only because MizFitz was on the opposite side. As we neared the center of the stream, Dewey spotted a large mat of green algae and, clearly thinking it was solid, headed for it. “No, Dewey!” I laughed. “That’s not—” Splash. He’d attempted to jump onto it and gone right through. Now he was even wetter and decorated with slimy green streamers too. His ears drooped sadly. I almost fell in from laughing. “Come on, you dummy,” I said, pulling on his leash.
We finally made it to the other side, Dewey balefully side-eyeing us the whole way back to the car. And, predictably, as soon as we climbed up the trail on the other side of the creek, we spotted a bridge a few hundred yards downstream. That, it turns out, is the pedestrian access to the beach at the south end of the park, reachable via a social trail from the park access road. Neither the trail nor the bridge is signed, but if you head south from the end of Benner Road, you’ll get there.
What about the name?
Grays Harbor attorney Austin Edward Griffiths donated just over 100 acres for a park and asked that its name honor his adoptive parents, Philip and Ann Priday. Originally from England, the Pridays and their son emigrated to Nebraska in 1872, and Griffiths came to Washington in 1889. He practiced law in Grays Harbor until 1897, when he moved to Seattle and served on the city council and school board, and as a superior court judge.
It’s not an unusual emigrant story, but for this one wonderful twist: taking a cue from Theodore Roosevelt, Griffiths believed that active time outdoors led to a healthy, productive life. He was an ardent advocate of playgrounds for children, and in 1908 founded the Seattle Playground Association, becoming known as the “Father of Seattle Playgrounds.” As far as I can tell, Seattle doesn’t have a park named for Griffiths, so I’m glad he’s remembered here.
Griffiths-Priday State Park doesn’t have slides and seesaws, but its beauty certainly invites visitors to be active outdoors. It’s a fitting legacy for its first benefactor.
Fast facts about Griffiths-Priday State Park
- 533-acre, day-use park
- 1.5 miles of saltwater shoreline, 1.88 miles of freshwater shoreline
- Discover Pass required, $10 daily or, for a very reasonable $30 per year, buy one.
- Picnic tables, reservable picnic shelter, restrooms
- Beach exploration, wildlife viewing, birdwatching
- Clamming, fishing
- Hiking, paddling in Copalis River
- Park map