Pre-Dawn of the First Day
It's 3:51 AM, and Matt and I are throwing our stuff in the car and setting out. 5 hours of driving await us until the southern head of the Lost Coast, the aptly named Black Sands Beach. This will be our final destination.
From there we are shuttled two hours more to the north trail head by the lovely and uber-informative Sherri with
Lost Coast Shuttle. Sherri was incredibly helpful, providing us with a map, tide table, and information on bears, rattlesnakes, poison oak, and hazard bypasses. If anyone is wondering what shuttle service to take, definitely go with Lost Coast Shuttle. Sherri will take care of you. It was a long seven hours, but we finally made it to Mattole Beach, the north end of our trail.
At approximately 12:30 PM Friday afternoon, we set out. Enjoying the trail as it lasted. But fear of ticks drove us back onto the sand.
It was tough going from here. After 10 minutes of sloshing through wet and dry sand, we wondered how we would make it through 24 miles.
The trail went back and forth between sand and good ol' fashioned hard dirt trail, a blessing on our knees.
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| Never seen a shell like this. What would make this? |
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| Surprisingly enough, there were patches of privately owned land here and there. Outhouses and all. None seemed to be occupied, but they did manage to take up all the good trails. |
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| We crossed over 30 freshwater streams of various sizes, draining down from the Kings Range. |
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| Punta Gorda Lighthouse awaited us 3 miles in. |
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| If you're now asking yourself, "Is that a buoy?" Then my answer would be, "Yes." |
On three hours of sleep, the going was tough, and the tough was slow going.
At one point, our beloved trail literally fell away before us, leaving nothing more than a cliff.
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| Back to the sands for us. |
Not only that, but on the way down, I broke a leg off my tripod! But not to worry, after I used it as a walking stick, I managed to fix the thing. Yay!
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| Gah! |
As the day drew to a close, and our first night's camp still 2 miles away, we settled for a nice spot up a large creek, where delicious meals were had. We traveled 6 miles that day, 2 less than planned, but we were butt-ass tired (a phrase I never quite understood). The creek mouth still lay within the high tide range, but its banks were flat and welcoming, well beyond the reach of the tides.
That night we ate like kings: Ramen noodles in pasta sauce with red peppers, red onions, and garlic. Manna from heaven!
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| Matt testing out his coke can stove. |
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| I carried my tripod 24 total miles for this shot. Worth it. |
Dawn of the Second Day
We had passed out about 9 PM the night before and woke up 8 AM this morning. 11 hours of sleep more than made up for our stumbling the day before. Of course, rocks and rocks awaited us on our trail.
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| An overturned mining cart perhaps? |
Some parts of the trail were labelled "Impassable at high tides." And we understood that when we finally escaped the waves-on-cliffs action, even at the low tide that morning. We had to run past several points in order to avoid the waves.
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| Not pictured: high tide. |
Once we had run past the final point, we emerged onto Spanish Flats, where long sweeping grassy plains kissed our feet with their firm trails.
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| Ahh my feet love this. |
But soon, our beloved friend would leave us. The sun retired behind a massive bank of fog, which would remain with us until the end of our trip.
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| Great colors the whole way, fog or not. |
After 12 miles, 6 more than the previous day and 4 more than planned, we arrived at Shipman Creek, once again smack dab in the middle of the high tide area. That night we ate like kings, combining our salami with our pasta sauce to create one magnificent feast. (If there's one thing I've learned from backpacking, it's that your appreciate every meal 10 times more than normal.)
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| There was a random light, probably a buoy, that shone all night. |
Dawn of the Third Day
Upon waking up, we were feeling fresh, fit, and ready to take on the world. Too bad that none of the last 6 miles left to us was on any sort of trail. Nothing but sand and rocks from here on out.
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| Bear tracks? Mountain lion tracks? We will never know. |
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| That, my friends, is the root system of a very large tree washed up on shore. |
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| For reference. |
By this point, we had maybe 2 miles left, but from what we could judge, that two miles would be all sand all the time. We were not wrong.
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| 1 mile to go. |
We powered through those last two miles with whatever strength we had left, not stopping for anything.
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| Our destination. So close, but still so far. |
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| That farthest point to the left is where we had camped the night before. Doesn't look like 6 miles does it? |
And finally, we were back to where it all started. Those last 6 miles were almost as bad with sleep as the first 6 miles had been without sleep.
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| Not pictured: tears of joy |
Bottom line:
The Lost Coast features beautiful landscapes that make it hard to take a bad picture. But ten minutes in the sand will make you wonder at your tolerance for ever stepping foot on a beach again. I don't regret this trip for a moment, but you'll be hard pressed to find me a reason to go back there in the near future. But then again, maybe it's like getting a tattoo: right after it's done you swear off them for the rest of your life. Why would you put myself through that kind of pain again? But then time goes on, the blisters heal, and you start to think about your next trip, the next design. I'm sure I'll be back for more. Just give me a couple years.
For more pictures, check out my
flickr.
