There are only a handful of beaches in the entire country where one can find an abundance of sea glass. While there are many places throughout the coastal states where you can find some scattered pieces, it’s not near the concentration of what you’ll find at Glass Beach, just north of Port Townsend, Washington.
North Beach, Port Townsend
photo credit: K.C. Dermody
If you’re a collector, or you’d just like to have fun seeing what you might find, a trip to this beach can make for a great time. To get there, you’ll need to go to North Beach Park, located a few miles west of downtown Port Townsend, and then take a 3-mile hike along the sand to McCurdy Point. This is where, during the Victorian era and a few decades beyond, trucks backed up to the edge of the bluff and dumped the town’s refuse onto the rocky shores of the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was eventually cleaned up in the 1960s, but some of that “junk,” was tossed and battered among the waves to result in beautiful pieces of sea glass that can be discovered today.
sea glass, photo credit: K.C. Dermody
Glass Beach is officially the area located just beyond McCurdy Point and extending south below the elevated bluff, but you can often find sea glass among the rocks, pebbles and sand as you walk from North Beach. It’s a fabulous way to enjoy a sunny day on the Olympic Peninsula!
