Damon Point — Sunday, Dec. 23, 2012

Southwest Washington > Long Beach Area

I had heard about this park in a local news article on the rare snowy owl visits. A few sites (wta.org) had what I thought were decent directions so we headed out on Christmas Eve to avoid the malls and enjoy what was supposed to be a relatively dry day. There are no signs or obvious parking spots. The best directions: In Ocean Shores, take Point Brown Ave south until you see a big old abandoned hotel right next to a well marked RV Park (they will be on your left). You'll see a paved section of road just past the RV park on the left that dead ends at the beach. There's unmarked, roadside parking next to the paved section/weeds. There was a porta-potty on the paved section of the road. If you walk to the end of the paved section (may 50 yards) it drops into the beach. Go to your right and you'll be at the Oyhut Wildlife Rec Area. Go to your left and you're on Damon Point :). As others have mentioned, this is a spit that appears to have had a road on it at one time. WTA description mentions a 4 mile beachside trail we never encountered. It's easy enough to walk around on the beach - maybe that's what they meant. Right now, as you walk left from the dead ended pavement, towards the island it looks like it's been squeezed by the surf and is nothing but sand, logs, shells and seagulls. Walk about .25 mile and the land expands and the grass starts. In the middle you can find what's left of the washed out road and parking lot. We walked the pavement until the end. We thought we were going to be out of luck with the owl sightings, but at the old parking lot area, we headed to the north beachside and I saw a big white bird swooping down to one of the logs...way too big for a seagull. It was a snowy owl! After that we saw about another 10. They perch in the trees and on downed logs. They are beautiful and worth the visit. They are shy so you will need a decent zoom lens to get any good pix. we had our lab (on a leash) and played in the surf/sand a bit as well as bird watching and exploring. We got back to the car almost three hours later. It was a great visit. I'd go back again in the summer.