THE LOST COAST

For our wedding anniversary, which always falls right around Labor Day weekend, we try to take advantage of the extra day off work and get out of town. 2 years ago we went to Santa Cruz and last year we backpacked in the Trinity Alps. To celebrate our 3rd anniversary this year we decided to make a brief visit to Arcata, to take a walk down memory lane and visit the spots Kristin frequented while at HSU, and then head south to go backpacking for a few days on the Lost Coast.

After we escaped the Friday afternoon holiday traffic that dotted the highway from SF to Santa Rosa we made it up to Arcata Friday night to (barely) find a place still open for dinner. Arcata is a small college town with plenty of bars but apparently not many late night restaurants. By the time we finished eating at 10p the owners of the Chinese restaurant were locking up right behind us as we exited. Saturday we slept in, seeing as we were on vacation, and then cruised up to Trinidad, just a short drive north of Arcata, to have a late breakfast at a restaurant called The Eatery where Kristin worked while in school. There she bumped into one of her long time customers turned pen pal friends, an older man named Bruce, who was a regular at The Eatery back in the day and apparently still in the present day. He very graciously offered to pay for our breakfast upon hearing we were visiting for our anniversary, which was a nice way to kick start the weekend. After lingering over a feast of eggs, bacon, pancakes, hash browns & coffee we cruised back to Arcata to load up with some food for camping and head out of town. After an unsuccessful visit to the Co-op where neither one of us could quite make a decision on what we wanted to eat, perhaps because we were still full from breakfast, we ended up taking a spin around the farmer's market instead. We were sort of in slow motion at this point, just enjoying having no place to be, which fittingly was kind of the theme of the trip.

Eventually we made it out of town and traversed the King Range making our way to Mattole Beach, which is the northern trailhead for The Lost Coast Trail. As we stood with the contents of our car's trunk strewn on the ground waiting to be packed up into our bags, blankly staring at the map at the trailhead (not having a map ourselves) we couldn't help but overhear a conversation of a mother/daughter team as the woman dropping them off double checked that they had both their trail map and their tide chart. We had neither. We had packed some what in haste Thursday night, printed some generic directions off the web, randomly grabbed food at Safeway in Arcata and were now feeling a bit unprepared.



The Lost Coast Trail as a whole is a 24-mile stretch that snakes along the Pacific Ocean with the trail alternating between walking right on the beach to winding its way above the coast via the cliffs for scenic views of the ocean below. In addition to rampant poison oak, not much fresh water and potential encounters with rattle snakes & bears, there are also stretches of the trail that are impassable at high tide, hence the need for a tide chart. Furthermore, even though the trail is only 24 miles long it's a several hour drive via car from one end to the other which requires either planning ahead and dropping a car at both ends or securing a ride from one of the local transports, such as the woman who was diligently double checking with the mother/daughter team about the maps, to drive you back to your point of origin. In other words, you have to have some things planned out before you get there. While we had no intentions of hiking the entire stretch, and therefore had the transport covered ourselves, we did want to pack in a few miles and find a good spot where we wouldn't be washed away by the high tides.

Deciding that at this point we were just going with the flow and winging it we stuffed the contents of our car's trunk into our bags, both of us casually noting forgotten items in the process. Our heavier sleeping bags, beanies & gloves, newspaper to start a fire, coffee for the mornings. All would have been nice. Clearly now at the coast and looking at the fog and feeling the ocean's breeze, the thought of staying warm was on our minds. We did have plenty of water (and wine), long pants to avoid the poison oak, and a bear canister for our food, so we set off figuring we'd make due with what little else we did bring. The new 'go-lite' camping movement was being ushered in ready or not.

We ended up packing in a modest 3 miles or so and found ourselves a ready built fortress at which to make camp. Along the way we did happen to cross paths with the mother/daughter team which we used for a brief Q & A session about the high tide times and where the good, as in we won't get washed away, spots to camp at were. The hike itself is quite nice albeit more strenuous that you might expect. Spoiling what is otherwise a scenic walk on the beach, with the ocean on your right and a relatively flat trail in front of you, is the sand beneath your feet. Walking on sand, with a pack, is actually more difficult than you would expect. Every step you sink into the soft sand and then must extricate yourself is a mini-work out soon felt in the quads, calves and hips. Even the sand at the water's edge is not solid enough to provide firm footing. But then again you are hiking along the Pacific Ocean with nary another soul in sight, so slogging through some soft sand is really a small price to pay.

Along the way in we passed by the Punta Gorda lighthouse which is, depending on your definition, the farthest point west in the continental United States. A cool bit of trivia compliments our friend Andy. By the time we had set up camp and made dinner it was about 7p on Saturday night and quite overcast and a bit chilly. But we survived the night and the next day the fog blew off a little after noon and we were treated to a great sunny day as we took a day hike further south down the coast. We figured we hiked another 2 or 3 miles south from our camp site and at one point on the trail we hit a stretch of beach that is one of the before mentioned portions of the trail that becomes impassable at high tide. It was low tide both coming and going for us so we were not left high & dry or in the case, low & wet.

Though of note, there is a rocky tip that requires you to not only scale the oceanside rocks but also time your trip to avoid getting wet from the splash of the crashing waves. It turned out the bouldering was fairly easy to traverse but it did turn back another group that was unsuccessfully sorting out the path right ahead of us. On the way back we were greeted by a sea lion who was quite startled by our presence as we both had to jump down from the rocks right next to the one it was sun bathing on and then hit the beach running to avoid the rising surf. You can see it here eyeballing Kristin as she makes her speedy getaway.

We spent the rest of Sunday afternoon back at our campsite lounging on the beach soaking up the sun, our respective books and some wine. Monday we slowly made our way back to the car after breakfast and then cruised down the 101, stopping in Garberville for lunch, before rolling back into SF Monday night. More photos from the trip can be viewed here.