Willapa Bay Walks

[bobcat]

A friend of mine invited me for a couple of days to his family beach house at Seaview, WA. In between the windstorm, bouts of driving rain, and blizzards of ice pellets, I visited a few short trails in the area.

Black Lake

Black Lake is right next to Highway 101 in Ilwaco. You can walk around the lake on trails and a stretch of road. There is also a 1.2 mile loop up wooded slopes of secondary growth Sitka Spruce and western hemlock on trails and old logging roads. North of Black Lake is an expanse of colorful cranberry bogs. It is a good fishing lake and used to be the site of a sawmill and then the source of Ilwaco’s drinking water.

Willapa Interpretive Art Trail and Cutthroat Climb

The Art Trail begins at the Willapa National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters and winds its way above a tidal marsh to a creek. The trail exhibits various forms of outdoor art, including a salmon run through the trees, colorfully-painted birds, carved mini-totems, and a feather-topped memorial wall to extinct species of North American birds. The Cutthroat Climb, on a rougher tread, makes a loop above and across the creek on lush wooded slopes.

Teal Slough

Just past Teal Slough on Highway 101, a gated logging road leads up into secondary forest belonging to the Willapa NWR. A trail peels off this road and visits a handful of massive cedars that were spared the loggers' saws due to splintered tops, multiple trunks, or other deformities.

[Peder]

Cool report bobcat, now I need to work out the exact locations of these places... It's amazing when "massive cedar" seems an understatement!

[backcountryhunter]

Next time you go up check out Ledbetter Point and if you have a canoe or kayak paddle across the bay at the Refuge HQ to Long Island. (a short paddle) the island has several trail loops and an old growth cedar grove.

[kepPNW]

I've been out on the peninsula a lot, and think I know where that lake is, but I've never seen all the rest of that. Gotta make a point of wandering around there, too! Appreciate the inspiration.

It's amazing when "massive cedar" seems an understatement!

Isn't it nice to see one like that still standing? (I saw one that big on the ford bypass the other day, but it was on its side.)

[bobcat]

@Peder: Black Lake is just north of Ilwaco High School/Middle School: there's a picnic area on the right side of Highway 101. The Willapa Refuge HQ is across from Long Island on 101N; the big trees walk is on a gated, unsigned logging road 1.6 miles east of the HQ just past the Teal Slough bridge on 101.

@backcountryhunter: Yes, I've been up to Leadbetter Point a few times. This time of year, though, it's soggy slogging as most of the trails are under water. Many years ago, my then-girlfriend (now my wife) and I rowed out to Long Island in a $20 Fred Meyer dinghy with plastic oars. We wandered around and saw the big cedars; also, I was intrigued by the fact that the island is supposed to have the highest density of black bears on the West Coast. No bears spotted, though, just a lot of poop. We got caught in the tide change coming back across the channel and floated into a muddy inlet, jumped the boat into waist-deep muck and shuffled back along the highway dripping black goo. One of many tests that she had to pass . . .