Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
8
Southwest Washington
S
outhwest Washington, which for the
purposes of this topic is defined as the
area west of I-5 and south of U.S. 12,
is for the most part sparsely populated
and heavily dependent on the timber
industry for its economic base. This
said, however, the region also contains
the state's busiest beach resort areas—
the Long Beach Peninsula and the
Central Coast area—as well as the
often-overlooked city of Vancouver,
which shares a name with the far
more famous Canadian city to the
north. Although present-day Vancou-
ver, Washington, is little more than a
bedroom community for Portland, it
abounds in pioneer history.
Aside from two last rocky head-
lands at the mouth of the Columbia
River, the coastline of southwest
Washington is a tame strip of sandy
beaches and windswept dunes. Grays
Harbor and Willapa Bay divide this
stretch of coast into three distinct
strips of sand: North Beach, South
Beach, and the Long Beach Peninsula.
These three strands have far more in
common with one another than they
do with the wild, rock-strewn beaches
to the north. And although these
beaches are far less spectacular than
those to the north, the abundance of
tourist accommodations along this
stretch of coast makes these the
favored beach vacation destinations of
the state.
Summers along the coast tend to
be short and often wet or foggy, and
the coastal waters are too cold and
rough for swimming (although surfing
is fairly popular). Consequently, the
traditional beach pursuits of swim-
ming and sunning aren't high on vaca-
tion priority lists around these parts.
Instead, these beaches have come to
rely on other activities to attract visi-
tors. All up and down this coast, dig-
ging for razor clams is a popular
pastime, though open seasons are now
short and as closely regulated as the
salmon-fishing seasons. The towns of
Westport, at the north end of the
South Beach area, and Ilwaco, at the
south end of the Long Beach Penin-
sula, have become the region's main
charter-boat ports, with Westport
charter boats also doing double duty
as whale-watching excursion boats.
South Beach and the Long Beach
Peninsula are also among the few
regions in the country where cranber-
ries are grown commercially. Long
Beach, a beach resort town for more
than 100 years, bills itself as the kite-
flying capital of America and boasts of
having the longest drivable beach in
the world. While vacationing families
fuel the local economy, oysters still
reign supreme in Willapa Bay, one of
the cleanest estuaries in the country.
However, an invasive, nonnative marsh
grass called spartina has taken hold in
this estuary and is slowly crowding out
native salt marsh plants and turning
this bay into unproductive mud flats.
While most of this region's develop-
ment has taken place around fishing
and shipping ports both along the
coast and up the Columbia River, the
heart of the region is the Willapa
Hills. These forested hills are almost
entirely privately owned, mostly by
