Twin Harbors State Park

For a stretch of the early twentieth century this beach was not a park at all but part of the Grays Harbor Military Reservation, where troops trained from about 1918 into the mid-1920s. A firing range once occupied the west side of what is now the campground, with soldiers drilling in the same dunes where campers now pitch their tents. It is a strange thing to picture on such a peaceful shore, and only the flat, cleared ground gives any hint of it now.

The state began acquiring the land for public use in 1937, turning the old reservation into one of the coast's early beach parks. The last of the military barracks was finally removed in 1977, closing the book on the army era. Today nothing warlike remains, only the beach, the dunes, and a park that has quietly served coast-bound families for the better part of a century.

The short trails between the campground and the beach are the small surprise of Twin Harbors. They start in a low forest of shore pine and lead through leaning, wind-sculpted tunnels of trees and grass before spilling out onto open dunes and then the sand. That forest is not entirely wild: park staff planted shore pines here back in the 1960s to help hold the drifting sand in place and to give campers a little shelter and privacy from the endless wind.

The result is a layered walk in miniature, from planted pine woods to grass-topped dunes to bare beach, all in a few hundred yards. Kids love the tunnels, birdwatchers find warblers and sparrows in the pines, and everyone appreciates the way the trees knock the wind down before it hits the exposed shore. It is a quiet lesson in how people have learned to live with a moving coastline rather than fight it.

The real draw is the beach itself, and what you do on it. When the razor clam season opens, usually in the cooler months on state-approved dig dates, the sand fills with people bent over with clam guns and tubes, chasing the telltale dimples the clams leave. It is one of the friendliest, most sociable things you can do on the Washington coast, and Twin Harbors is one of the beaches people come back to year after year to do it.

The rest of the year the beach belongs to walkers, beachcombers, surf-fishers, and kite-flyers, who make the most of the near-constant onshore wind. The Pacific here is cold and its currents are strong, so this is a place to wade and explore rather than swim, but the sheer scale of the open sand makes even a gray, blustery day feel restorative. Sunsets over the water, when the clouds cooperate, are the reward for staying to the end of the day.

The park sits right on State Route 105 a few miles south of Westport, so it is an easy drive in and there is a large day-use lot as well as the campground. You will need a Discover Pass or a day-use permit to park, and it pays to bring layers, since the coast runs cool and windy even when it is warm inland. There are no shops in the park, so stock up in Westport first.

For an overnight, the campground is one of the largest on the coast, with a big spread of tent and RV sites plus heated yurts and rustic cabins that make it a genuine year-round beach base. Give yourself time to walk the dune trails, spend an unhurried hour or two on the sand, and if the tide and the season line up, try your hand at the clams. It is an honest, elemental piece of the Washington coast, and a fine anchor for exploring Westport and the wider Grays Harbor shore.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.