Ocean Park

Once the Pacific Highway (a.k.a. Hwy. 103) exits the north end of hectic Long Beach [1], you are suddenly in an almost flat landscape of lodgepole pine trees and scattered summer and retirement homes. You can’t see the ocean or Willapa Bay [2] from here, but there are access points all along the way, including at Klipsan Beach.

After 11 miles of this, the highway widens into Ocean Park (pop. 1,400), a place considerably more sedate than Long Beach, but nevertheless a popular summer retreat.

The Wreckage, on the south side of 256th just west of Highway 103, is a unique house constructed in 1912 from logs salvaged after a storm broke apart a raft of logs being towed off the coast. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

Loomis Lake State Park (south of Klipsan Beach) has picnic tables on the ocean, not the lake; the real Loomis Lake is about a quarter mile north. No camping is allowed here.