Lost Coast & Redwoods
Bethany and I left our car at Shelter Cove and rode a shuttle with Lost Coast Adventure Tours for about two hours through the redwoods to Mattole Beach, where our trip began. The coast-redwood forest we drove through is home to the tallest trees on Earth. From Mattole, we backpacked 25 miles south, past elephant seals and the Punta Gorda Lighthouse. The first night we camped at Cooskie Creek, inside the stretches of coast that are impassable at high tide. We had to calculate best times to push through 5 miles stretches before the trail disappeared under water entirely, the water would rise six feet, wild ocean crashing against the cliffs.
The next day we hiked on to Kinsey Creek, crossing the flats and passing deer along the way. We camped on the beach that night under a perfect sky, one of the best night views we’ve had. As the coast fell away beneath us, our right feet sank deeper than our left, so we had to shift our packs to the left to stay balanced. Before dinner we found a rattlesnake under driftwood near our camp.
Past the last impassable zone we saw bear tracks and sea otter tracks, and we found sea stars and abalone shells along the shore. We reached Gitchell Creek for our final night before the five-mile hike out. We took photos of the stars that night. On the last day we made it back to our car just past Black Sands Beach: 25 miles of sinking sand, slippery boulders, and wild, crashing surf. My favorite memory is the sound of thousands of rocks tumbling against the next shelf as the tide began to fall.
