Day 1
I was supposed to be accompanied by my best buddy Marco on the drive up to the Lost Coast, but he chickened out at the last second (JK buddy!) so I was forced to make the trip alone. 11 hours of driving, mostly along the worlds most boring highway, I5 North. I did the first part of the trip in record time, but once I reached the 101 I had many endless hours of winding slow driving to look forward to. I passed a few sections of amazing redwoods as I neared the town of shelter cove (where my dad and I would meet) and became more excited with every second! I reached the ranger station which was located just outside of shelter cove and got my bear canisters and map. Then it was just a waiting game, waiting for my dad to get there, hoping we would have enough time to drive down to shelter cove, dump off my car, and drive all the way back over to Mattole campground where the trail commenced.
Luckily I didn't have to wait long, only a half hour or so. He showed up and we were reunited after about 6 months! good to see my daddio! We decided that since we were there we might as well get all our gear sorted out, what to bring and what to leave behind, so that when we left my car we would only have the essentials for the trip. We packed up everything and by the time we were done My pack must have weighed around 65 lbs and my fathers was around 35 lbs. Granted, I am 27 and he is 53, but it seemed a little on the heavy side for me! The reason for this weight differential, besides age, was that the only backpack in my possession at that time was the 40 liter REI Venturi, which can work splendidly as an overnight or two night backpack for summer backpacking, but most definitely was too small for an extended trip, when used by my father. He loves to pack everything and the kitchen sink! Well, not that much, but definitely more than I was used to carrying. Once we got everything situated I realized that another reason for all the additional weight was that I was carrying fishing gear and a clam gun (2+ lbs!) which added to the massiveness of my backpack. I was carrying my dad's Gregory (model unknown) and it was a monster 85 liter pack, able to fit, for lack of better words, everything and the kitchen sink!
I had spent weeks and weeks planning this little trip, weighing all my gear, making sure that my pack would be less than 40 lbs, even with all the extras for such an extended trip, clamming, and fishing and such. All of it smashed to pieces by the lack of a larger backpack! Or maybe it was not the lack of a larger backpack but the having of a too large backpack. I'm not really sure, all I know is that my planning was all thrown off.
Anyway, we got into the cars and I followed my dad, winding our way down the coastal range (The King Range) and into the town of Shelter Cove, where we would leave my car and continue our journey from there.
We got to the parking lot which also served as the end of the lost coast trail, or trailhead, depending on which direction you want to hike it. We were planning to hike it north to south, since all the research said that the wind should be at your back the majority of the time! As we got out of the car to go take a look at what we would be hiking on, we met a scout leader who was waiting for the rest of his scout troop. He said that we were lucky, and had the weather to our benefit. He had been on the coast the previous three days, and they had had rain. He said his Bivy sack was a pain in the rain. Really! no! Get out of town! I could have told him that. Anyway, we parked my car, said a quick prayer for it and our hope of driving home, and took off for the opposing trailhead, a 50 + mile drive, winding through redwood forest, grassy rolling hills, and cattle ranches. We finally got to Lighthouse Road, the last section of dirt road that would take us to our beginning point and the trail head.
As we pulled into the trailhead parking lot we were in awe of how absolutely beautiful the scenery was! Backpacking, on the coast, Really?!?!?! I had never thought I would do it, but here I was! It was around 7 PM by the time we got our stuff out and started trekking, with only around 45 min. of light left. We decided to hike until we found a driftwood structure that suited us and one that had a stream nearby so that we would have readily available water. As we hiked we saw our first bear tracks right there in the sand! This sighting made me excited for the amount of wildlife that we could see on the trip! The fact that the bear came right down on the beach was enough to tell me that I would see plenty of wild life.
We kept hiking through the sand and every now and then the trail went up off the beach onto the edge of the bluff, giving us better footing and making for a spectacular view as the sun began to set! "Man the sand is hard to hike in", I thought. Little did I know that I would be regretting that notation of an obvious fact later on in the trip!
We passed a few people who were already setting up camp and kept on going for a few more miles unto we found the perfect spot. A small but effective driftwood windbreak and fire pit (which we didn't end up using, tear!). We quickly got out our gear and set up the tent, which nearly blew away a few times! We had eaten fairly recently and had no need of dinner, so we satisfied ourselves with some odwalla bars and water. I had the first smoke I had had in weeks that felt free
Our first camp
, and we trundled off to bed, excited for what the low tide in the morning would bring! Once we got in the tent I found a few of natures friends clinging to my clothes! Ticks!!!!! AHHHHH! The rangers had warned us that they were everywhere, but come on! I had only been hiking for less than an hour! Of course my dad had none, since ticks do not like old man blood (jk dad). I promptly threw them from the tent, zipped the door tight, and fell right to sleep! No need for ear plugs or sleeping aids tonight! I had my very own wave machine white noise crashing a few yards away! Beautiful!
Day 2
The next morning we awoke to an awesome surprise! My dad had just decided to walk down to the ocean after a cup of coffee to check out the low tide. As soon as he came over the low hill he was greeted by a small baby leopard seal! Just sitting right there on the beach, presumably waiting for its mother who was out fishing. We were able to get within a few feet of it, but it growled at us and scooted off to the safety of the waves before long.
We walked around for an hour or so exploring the tide pools, but sadly there was not much marine life close at hand as I had expected! We even tried to throw our home made crab trap in and got nothing for our troubles. It was not the most encouraging beginning to the day. I also tried my clam gun but to no avail. The sand was mostly composed of small rocks that would not create enough suction for the gon to work. Two down. Only the fishing pole remained to get us some good old ocean harvest!
We packed up our gear and headed out around 9 AM. We knew there was a large section of coast that was impassible at high tide that we were going to have to cross during the day, so we picked up the pace and made good time.
The dirt is so much better than the sand!
Dad at the wilderness border.
After about an hour we came upon the fabled Punta Gorda light house. It was really neat! I couldn't imagine what it would have been like to live there while operating that light house all those years ago, cut off from society. But I wished that I could have done it!!!! What a picturesque location for a work place! We took some photos and while we were resting, we ran across an abalone hunter that had been unsuccessful in his pursuits. He told us that we had great weather and would enjoy ourselves. 
Punta Gorda Lighthouse from the North
Me in the door way
Dad standing on the balcony up top
As we hiked toward our destination (which we didn't know at the time since we were playing it by ear hehe ;-) the trail started to drastically change elevation. We had though that the whole trail ran along the actual beach, and when we checked the map, we realized that we had taken a side trail, that ascended into the King Range! We had gone far enough that we didn't want to turn back, and we hoped that there would be a trail running back down to the beach at some point, or we were screwed! Even though we went out of our way, we were presented with probably the most grand and beautiful scenery that we had experienced to date!
Dad pointing the way into the great beyond!
I thought the slope of the trail and the background scenery was so cool on this one. Reminded me of a Hobbit path or something hehe!
As we continued up the trail we soon heard the bark and growls of many sea lions! The big rocks were covered with sea lions, and as we approached a gulch, we could hear them even better! The gulch/ravine channeled the sound up to us from the ocean. When we looked at the map it read Sea Lion Gulch, which was evident by the amount of noise! There was one large sea lion, the biggest one of them all, sitting off to the side on a smaller rock, the proverbial king of the rock! And any time the other seals came near the rock he would fight them off! We found a small stream at the top of the gulch and we filled our bladder bags and got going again eager to find our next picturesque camp site.
The King of the Rock! haha
We ended up finding a trail going down to the beach again thankfully and were able to make it to another stream before the tide hemmed us in and we had to stop to let it go out. We first checked out the vista from the top of the ridge looking back the way we had come.
My favorite picture from the trip!
We decided to take a little bath and then build a fire and do some fishing. While my dad freshened up, haha, I decided to build a little wind stop/fort to put a fire in while we waited. Then I did a little fishing, to no avail, and hung out by the fire! It was a nice long rest, and we ate a little lunch while we waited for the tide to move out. We got tired of waiting however, and decided to climb over the rocks and take the hard way around the waves!
The rocks we climbed over with the waves breaking on them
After the rocks we were getting really tired, and had been hiking for almost eight miles of mostly nothing but sand. The day was hot and the sun was really beating down. We were in a section that was under water at high tide however, so we had no choice but to keep going. We stopped for a break on some logs, and at one point had this sickly little seagull following us down the beach, begging us for food. We kept on going and the beach seemed to go on forever! We were both exhausted, and the sun was getting low, but we really wanted to find a nice camp site and were shooting for Spanish Flats. We finally made it and saw about ten to 15 other people, a boy scout group, and two other groups of around four to five people each. We bunkered down in the best wind break driftwood structure we could find, set up the tent (or tried to since the tent pole promptly broke, and neither of us had brought a tent pole repair kit, not to self for next trip hehe), Repaired the broken tent pole with all purpose duct tape, cooked some dinner, and were ready for bed. However, I was not going to let my opportunity to have a fire pass me by, so I built a fire, and roasted me some good marshmellows and had a few smores with my dad before we hit the sack! What a long day of hiking, but well worth it!
Day 3
We took our time waking up and getting going on the third day of the trip. We laid around the campsite, chatting with the neighbors until they took off, and then we decided to take a little day hike before setting out ourselves. We followed the stream up towards the gulch at Spanish Flatts and hiked back into the foliage a ways. We found an awesome camp site back by the creek, under a tree with a great fire pit. Wish we had explored more the night before! Would make a great camp (for those of you reading this that may attempt the lost coast hehe). Anyway, we hiked a ways back into the woods following the creek. Saw some beautiful flowers, some deer, rabbits, and lots and lots of lizards. No rattlers thankfully!
Wishing we had hiked on earlier so as to avoid the heat of the day!
It seemed to us, as we got further and further down towards our destination of Shelter Cove, that the scenery was somewhat diminishing! The landscape was starting to turn really dry, and we mostly only saw long grassy shoreline with barren rock covered beach the entire hike the third day. It was beautiful in its own rite, but we were so tired from the previous days hike that we missed much of the beauty. Trudging along through the sand and grass was hard work! But we did happen to see a really cool cabin while walking along it's personal runway! Awesome, can you imagine having a cabin on Big Flatts to which you flew in your own plane! There is no better place to be! Also, they skip all the hard stuff, like hiking hehe!
Awesome private cabin
We finally trudged our way into Big Flatts and finally saw the river that comes out of the gulch at Big Flatts. We were beat! Almost ten miles the day before and today was only five, but it felt like ten! We dumped out bags at the first structure we came to, but decided to take a look around further to see if there were any other cool places to camp! We filled up our now empty water supply and scouted around for a better camping spot. We ran into a group that had been ahead of us the whole way who had a great spot! They told us there was an even better spot back in the trees! Sure enough, when we came through the thick foliage we saw a large fire ring with logs all the way around, and a nice big grassy area for tents. Over all of this were some of the coolest trees that we had ever seen! Tall and full of curving branches that stretched over us to create the neatest canopy! My dad's sciatic nerve was bugging him so I went back for the packs and carried them the rest of the way to the shelter, probably a good 500 yards! I still got it! HAHA. We then set up camp, took a bath which held some hidden surprises for my dad (lucky!!! HAHA), climbed around in the trees, made a fire, drank, ate, and then I decided to try some fishing. After fishing, which provided no fish, only sea weed, we went back to camp and then out to see the sunset. I had my eye on this great log looking west, but my dad saw something better, and so I bypassed it at the last second. We watched the sunset and then headed back as twilight set in. As we were walking past the log I had proffered as a good spot to sit, I saw something slither! Black, two inches wide, with a rattle on the back end! A Timber Rattler! AHHHHHHH! Sitting right where I would have jumped over the log and put my feet down! We promptly threw some big rocks at it and most likely killed it, although we never got close enough to check haha! We warned our friends who were sleeping close by and then went off to bed. My fishing worms container had sprung a leak, so i decided, instead of putting it in the bear canister, to hang it up so as not to befoul the food. Not ten minutes after going into the tent for the night, we heard a bear rattling around in our stuff outside the tent! I was sure that it would get the worms, but they were around twelve feet high with nothing to climb around. But I was not gonna go look now! Wait it out! Till the morning. Sleep finally came.
Some numb nuts started a forest fire! Nice sunset though.
Day 4
We were sad to leave our beautiful camp site behind but had to keep going, so we decided to head out early to beat the heat today. We started down the beach and immediately saw a ton of bear prints, and it seemed as if they were right in front of us up the beach! But sadly we never saw them. We harvested some muscles to stew later and continued down the beach. We ran across our friends that we had been trailing the whole time and took a few pics. Nice people! We set out again and realized that the scenery had changed drastically again. Now a beautiful and lush land mass was marching along next to us down the beach. Amazing! So cool, how the scenery can change so suddenly. We found some neat driftwood and my dad couldn't help but stand on it!
Some big driftwood
We decided to stop at Marshal Creek, only about three miles from Shelter Cove. We took a hike up the creek to check if there were any cool campsites, but there were none, but dad took a nice accidental dip in the creek! We then hung out on the beach and watched the surfers trek by headed for the great surfing at Big Flatts, back the way we had come. We used some trekking poles to set up a makeshift sun shade with the rain fly of dad's tent. We also finally gave back to the Lost Coast by building a cool hammock out of a net that we found on the beach! It was a blast! After lounging in the hammock we cooked some dinner, which was composed of clam chowder mix and the muscles we had found earlier that day. It was great, except for the corn that didn't re-hydrate all the way, rock hard! Yuck! We finished off dinner with some chocolate rasberry creme brulete! Full, and tired, we washed the dishes in the ocean, fixed the tent pole with a few sticks and some beach string, and hit the sack. We were nearly there, but really enjoyed our last full day on the coast!
The last sunset on the Lost Coast!
Day 5
We set out early and were planning on dining on some delicious breakfast once we got out around 9 am we hoped. We walked along black sands beach, one of the longest stretches of beach we had come across so far. We trekked our way up to the trailhead and were so happy to see my car still there unmolested! We headed to shelter cove where we ate at a great place and were finally full after our trek down the beach! What a wonderful trip with my dad! Great weather, good company, and some amazing memories in the wilderness of Northern California! Thanks Lost Coast! We Shall Return.
Good Bye Lost Coast!
Until Next Time...
I love it! Really fun my precious Son! It was a great adventure!
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