At the far right end of the parking lot, climb the paved trail 300 yards to the Interpretive Center.  On the way you'll pass the concrete ruins of Battery Harvey Allen, a bunker that housed three 6-inch gins from 1906 until after World War II.  The Interpretive Center itself features walk-through exhibits of photographs, artifacts, and journal entries from the Lewis and Clark expedition.

When you leave the museum, walk to the ocean viewpoint and turn left along the bluff's rum to find the trail to the Cape Disappointment lighthouse.  After 0.3 mile you'll pass a viewpoint of Dead Man's Cove, where a shipwreck casualty once washed ashore.  The beach here has been closed, so continue straight until you turn right on a concrete pathway that skirts the cove's clifftops for 0.3 mile to the lighthouse built in 1856 to cut the appalling frequency of shipwrecks on the Columbia River bar, the "Graveyard of the Pacific."

If you still have energy after your lighthouse hike, spend it on a 1.4-mile loop along the Coastal Forest Trail.  This path begins at the crossroads for the par's boat launch, half a mile before the interpretive center.  Look for the trailhead in the horthwest corner of the shuttle bus parking lot.  Keep right at all junctions to explore this jungly rainforest's trail network.  Along the way, 10-foot-thick spruces twist contorted branches above a carpet of wild lily-of-the-valley.  Viewpoints overlook tidal flats, craggy islets, and the Ilwaco boat channel.

This chapter is an excerpt from 100 Hikes : Oregon Coast