On the ocean side of the park, design work for a boardwalk called for putting in new native plantings on either side. Starting next to an alder grove, the boardwalk curves past dunegrass, sedge, and red fescue. It then concludes at Waikiki Beach. Cast oyster-shell concrete planks were designed in several sizes to form the curving boardwalk itself. Lin selected text from the Lewis and Clark journals to appear along the way, and chose to have the text inscribed into stone and inlayed within the concrete planks.

The length of the boardwalk represents the full 4133-mile journey of the Corps of Discovery, from St. Louis to this spot on the Pacific. Spacing of the text was plotted out to be in scale to the miles travelled on their journey. Tribal and place names would be placed in proportion to the distances between them.

It's symbolically the last walk along the confluence journey. As you take that walk, you're walking through a summary statement of all the places they travelled through along their journey, counting it out mile to mile. What you realize is that you are walking through all these different homelands.   –Maya Lin

Walking the boardwalk features views of restored dunes, then driftwood and waves on the sand of Waikiki Beach. It also features text from the Lewis and Clark journals listing all the places they travelled through, the distances between them, and Native American tribes they encountered along the way. Their journey can be experienced by reading the names while walking the relative distances between all these places. On the way to the beach, entries appear from their journey westward to the Pacific Ocean on the left side of the boardwalk. While walking back from the beach, entries from their return east to St. Louis also appear on the left side.