Pacific Pines State Park – state parks quest #18

Washington State Parks, including Pacific Pines and the ocean beach approaches discussed in this post, are closed because of coronavirus. Please help flatten the curve and stay home. I’m grateful for our state’s leadership during this unsettling time. I’ve got a small backlog of content, though, and I’m going to post until Mr. Adventure and I can get back into the parks, so please enjoy your parks virtually for now. In the meantime, be well and stay safe.

Lauren

Through the pines

Cape Disappointment may be the best-known state park on the Long Beach Peninsula, but there are several others that, although not as large or spectacular, have their own charms. One of those is Pacific Pines State Park.

Mr. Adventure and I visited Pacific Pines during our winter solstice weekend. This small, 10-acre park is about two-thirds of the way up the peninsula, just north of the town of Ocean Park. A small parking lot opens onto a grassy space with picnic areas and restrooms.

From there, it’s a short walk to the beach through a band of pine and other trees. On the day we visited, lichens draped the pine branches and drew us into the trees.

Ferns and pine needles littered the understory, and social trails led south to the street and north, presumably to adjacent private land.

In a few minutes, we emerged into a stretch of dune grass with the ocean just beyond.  A few more steps and we were on the wide, wet beach, the ocean waves churning white under fast-moving gray skies.

Seashore Conservation Area

Although the park boundaries stop short of the beach proper, that precious public access to the ocean beach is what makes Pacific Pines noteworthy. The ocean beaches on the Long Beach Peninsula — all 27 miles of them— are part of the Washington State Seashore Conservation Area, which preserves the beaches for public recreation.

In the decades after World War II, Washington’s population skyrocketed. Between 1950 and 1960 the state’s population grew by a half-million people, or nearly 20 percent. Between 1960 and 1970, it grew another 20 percent. That growth meant that more people wanted more public lands set aside for recreation. The Washington State Legislature acknowledged the pressure on recreational resources imposed by a growing population, asserting the state must “dedicate the use of the ocean beaches to public recreation.”

The state legislature recognized that private development threatened many beaches, and it acted to ensure that ocean beaches would remain open to the public by creating the Washington State Seashore Conservation Area (SCA) in 1967. The enabling legislation states that Washington’s Pacific Ocean beaches “constitute some of the last unspoiled seashore remaining in the United States. …[and] provide the public with almost unlimited opportunities for recreational activities,” including swimming, fishing, shellfish gathering, hiking, boating, beachcombing, and surfing. 

The federal precedent: National Seashores

The state based its farsighted decision to preserve the ocean beaches for public recreation on the federal government’s example. Beginning in the 1950s, Congress had authorized National Seashores and National Lakeshores for precisely the same reasons: access to public recreation for a burgeoning population and the threat of private development. Although Congress in 1937 authorized the earliest National Seashore, Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, it wasn’t until the 1950s that the concept took off. Bolstered by grants from the Mellon family, the National Park Service started seriously studying the recreational potential of beaches and lakeshores. 

A 1959 National Park Service report, “Pacific Coast Recreation Area Survey,” called seashores a “great national safety valve, a place to work off the tensions of modern living.” It predicted, “In mass recreation lies the future of much of the Pacific Coast.” The report named nine areas in Washington as having particular recreation potential, including Cape Disappointment and Leadbetter Point, the southernmost and northernmost reaches of the Long Beach Peninsula. 

“Now is the time when we must ask ourselves what will be more valuable, precious, or important 50 or 100 years from today — a housing development, a garbage dump, an airport, a factory, or a seashore park where Americans can partake of the magnificence of natural things, and the refreshment of strength and spirit that accompanies such an experience?”

Pacific Coast Recreation Area Survey, 1959

During the 1960s and 1970s, Congress established another ten national seashores and three national lakeshores, with California’s Point Reyes National Seashore the only one on the West Coast. For the National Park Service, national seashores and lakeshores signaled a shift in focus, from parks created to preserve pristine landscapes to those created to preserve threatened landscapes like ocean beaches. 

Ocean beaches for public recreation

What happens in national parks influences what happens in state parks, and in that sense it is not surprising that Washington State took a cue from the creation of national seashores and established a state Seashore Conservation Area. 

The SCA includes 62 miles of Pacific coast, including 27 miles on the Long Beach Peninsula. The rest lies north, between Tokeland and Westport (13 miles) and Ocean Shores and the southern boundary of the Quinault Indian Reservation (22 miles). The 80-plus miles of beach north of the Quinault Reservation are mostly part of Olympic National Park, with stretches in the Quillayute, Ozette, and Makah Indian Reservations.

The upshot is that pretty much all of Washington’s Pacific Coast is conserved for public recreation and nature. But the legislature realized it wasn’t enough to simply provide public recreation access to ocean beaches. The legislation required that recreation uses be regulated so that “Washington’s unrivaled seashore may be saved for our children in much the same form as we know it today.” And which agency was assigned the task of regulating the new Seashore Conservation Area? The Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission.

Driving on the beach

On the Long Beach Peninsula, that regulation has meant balancing non-motorized recreation with what for some is a cherished privilege: driving on the beach. I remember the first time I saw cars driving on the beach here. I was flabbergasted. Why in the world would you even want to do that? It’s a beach. It’s for building sand castles and digging and lying around soaking up the sun. 

For some folks, though, the beach is for driving. And that, too, is codified in state law. Beaches in Pacific and Grays Harbor counties are considered state highways, and driving is allowed within certain parameters. On the Long Beach Peninsula, in Pacific County, those parameters stipulate that 15.7 miles of beach, including that fronting Pacific Pines State Park, is open to driving all year. Another 4.1 miles is open from early September to March 31 only. Four miles at the very northern end of the peninsula is closed except during razor clam season (yum), and 2.5 miles in Cape Disappointment State Park is closed year-round.

No ATVs are allowed on the beach, the speed limit is 25 mph, and 4-wheel-drive is strongly recommended. The Long Beach Peninsula tourism website spells it all out. 

The day we visited Pacific Pines, two sets of fresh tire tracks, one coming, one going, striped the sand just above the tide line. We spotted a truck parked south of the park, but other than a guy with his dog and a flock of skittering shorebirds, it was just us out there. In the summer it’s different. Pacific Pines is a gateway to a day at the beach, and the sand will be crowded with blankets and chairs and kids running around and yes, some vehicles. It’s not my thing, but allowing vehicles on certain areas of the ocean beaches is part of how the state regulates public recreation in the Seashore Conservation Area.

Thank you, Washington State Parks

In addition to Pacific Pines, two other state parks offer access to the Seashore Conservation Area: Cape Disappointment and Leadbetter Point. Additionally, there are five ocean beach approaches (OBAs) on the Long Beach Peninsula by which the public can access the seashore: Cranberry, Oysterville, Seaview, Klipsan, and Ocean Park, which is about one-third of a mile south of Pacific Pines. They provide that all-important public access to Washington’s beautiful Pacific Ocean beaches. Any time of year, I’m thankful for Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission’s continuing management of Pacific Pines and the Seashore Conservation Area, a priceless public resource.

Fast facts about Pacific Pines State Park

• 10-acre, day-use park, open May – September
• picnic tables, restrooms
• beachcombing, wildlife viewing, birdwatching, kite flying, clamming and crabbing (in season with license)
• park brochure
• park map