Lost Coast

After that great week of catching up with friends in Oregon, SR flew in from Denver to join me for another round of adventuring, south along the coast.

There's aren't many more dramatic arrivals at the Pacific than the view at Cannon Beach.

And headed south into California, the drama grows. No pun intended. This is redwood country, and they are mighty.

We stayed for a night in the appealing town of Arcata with my cousin B and his wife M, who live in a sweet house on a gorgeous property (complete with outdoor shower, sauna, chicken coop, greenhouse, raised garden beds, and an adjacent conservation causeway where they can walk through a redwood grove whenever they want).

It was hard to tear ourselves away from the offer of sauna time, but we had been to the Arcata BLM office to pick up our required bear canisters and were ready for our long-planned adventure--backpacking in the Lost Coast Wilderness. Not really into paying the shuttle fee necessary to do the entire, one-way hike, we instead drove down to Shelter Cove and hiked out to Big Flat and back over 5 days, 4 nights.

The walking on the beach was not easy, but the scenery and remoteness were totally worth it.

We had unbelievably lucky, brilliant, sunny weather for the first four days of our trip. So though we'd been planning to stay for a fifth night and sixth day, when on the fifth day the clouds rolled in, we decided to hike out the entire 8.5 miles and call it a trip with fond memories rather than rolling the dice with the rain. Good choice, as by the time we made it back to the trailhead parking lot, tired but grateful, it was hard to see where we'd come from, and the chilly drizzle soon reached us in our retreat.

Satisfied at having gotten to spend such great time on this stretch of wild, undeveloped coastline, we pointed the car to a pretty opposite environment: the metropolis of the San Francisco Bay area. Coming soon!