Weekend BlogLog - Aug. 28th

Bear Caches, Rattlesnakes, Tics and Posion Oak

For the Holiday weekend Rick and I decided to backpack the Lost Coast, something we have wanted to do for quite some time now. The Lost Coast is a long 30 mile stretch of land in Northern California along the coast. They call it the Lost Coast because there are no roads that lead out there. The only way to see this coast line is to backpack it. It is a rugged coast line with rocky mountainous cliffs.

The start begins at Shelter Cove which is the end of the trail on the southern side. There you hop in a shuttle which takes you to the most northern part of the trail in Mattole. The shuttle drops you off and from there you hike the 26 miles or so to the other end.

On Friday night as we were driving up to Humboldt county we stopped by the gas station in Garberville to fill up and see if they had a map of the King Range for hiking. The lady looked at Rick like he was crazy. She said "This isn't a good time of the year to be hiking around in the King Range. I wouldn't go there now." We assumed she was referring to the bears, as there were many bear alerts on the website. The website warns backpackers to be extra careful of the bears. You must have all your food and toiletries in a bear cache and then hid the bear canister away from your camp. They even suggested cooking down wind from camp and then changing your clothes after you eat so the bears don't pick up any food scents while you are sleeping. We were wrong. She wasn't referring to the bears, she was referring to the Doppers or the pot growers in the area. You may or may not know that Humboldt county is famous for its pot. She said you don't want to go wondering in the mountains and run into any pot growers. They can get pretty protective of their crops. We told her that we would be hiking the Lost Coast along the beach and she felt a little better about that. The lady who drove the shuttle for us also confirmed the danger of the pot gowers in the area. She said if we break down any where or get lost - Do Not wonder around, let someone come to us. Lucky for us, we had no run ins with the Doppers in the area!





We started our journey on Saturday morning with nice big heavy packs. The weather was great for the coast. It was hot and sunny. The wind was kinda nice, it kept us from sweating as we hiked. The first day we hiked in about 10 miles. The terrain was tough, not your usual trail. A lot of the hike was along the beach in the sand, and as you can imagine hiking in the sand with a big pack is not the easiest thing. Some sections of the beach were filled with rocky boulders which also slowed us down. Hoping from one rock to another, hoping you don't loose your balance with your pack on your back. Every now and then we got lucky and were able to walk on the real ground on a dirt trail up along the ridge. This is where we pushed along as quickly as possible to make up some of the time lost on the beach.



The first day was pretty windy (which felt nice). Rick, who studies the wind speeds and reports on a daily basis so he knows when to go kiteboarding predicted the wind speed to be about 20 miles an hour on average. However, there were several gusts of wind that were much stronger, so strong that it would throw Rick and I off balance and we would loose our footing. Rick predicts the stronger gusts to be about 40 miles per hour. All I know is that it was pretty strong. Those strong gusts of wind caused sand storms. Although I have never had Chinese acupuncture, I can only imagine that this is how it would feel!

There are a few parts of the trail that are unpassable during high tide, so we had to make sure we had a tide table with us. The first day we had a four mile stretch that was unpassable. Lucky for us we started late enough and hit the pass just as the tide was starting to go down. You wouldn't want to get stuck up against the rocky cliffs during high tide.

After about 10 miles of hiking we reached Spanish Flats where we set up camp. The first night I was extremely paranoid about bears from reading all the information on the website. I knew we couldn't set up camp on the beach because we needed to get out of the wind and into the shelter and protection of the canyon, but setting up in the canyon where the bears were scared me. We did a few things to keep the bears away - I brought my travel boggle key chain with me and attached it to the outside of my pack. This was something I did as a child, although the real big game rather than the small travel size. The key chain rattles around while hiking and makes a bunch of noise. Making noise while hiking alerts the bears that something is near - you don't want to surprise a bear. Rick on the other hand had his own strategy. He found two nice looking, smooth, light colored sticks that he held in his hands and banged then together. He was banging sticks for hours and hours. I think he got the idea from the movie Parent Trap but I am sure he wouldn't say that!

We set up camp and then headed to the river to pump some water and make dinner. We had Pasta Roni - Garlic and Herb. It was pretty good and very light to carry and easy to make. We of course changed out of our cooking clothes and into our pj's before settling in the tent. We crawled into our nice warm tent and played a game of boggle and gave each other massages.

We woke up and enjoyed the warm sun in the morning. Rick made breakfast and did the dishes. We had pancakes and bacon. The shelf stable pre-cooked Tyson bacon is the best backpacking food that I have ever come up with. It really hits the spot out there on the trail and is easy to carry. The Tyson brand is also a ChefsBest Award Winner - so even better! We laid around in the canyon tanning, trying to get rid of some of our tan lines and then we hit the trail.



Our second day on the trail was a little tougher since we had sore muscles. We hiked for about 7 or 8 miles. We enjoyed the nice weather and the beautiful scenery. We finally reached Shipmans Cove where we set up camp. We set up our tent in the middle of a drift wood pile on the beach. Rick built us a shelter from the wind out of drift wood. He enjoyed doing that but ended up with a lot of splinters. The creek was close by and very beautiful. It overlooked the beach and the waves. Again we pumped water and cooked along the creeks edge. We had boil in a bag rice and indian food with oriental noodles. It hit the spot. We then enjoyed the evening away from the wind, in the tent with a game of pass the pigs. Rick won every time.


We woke up Monday morning and tried to cook our instant oatmeal but ran out of fuel so we ended up eating granola bars and power bars until we reached the car. We left camp pretty early and started our last stretch. It was wonderful. The wind wasn't up yet and the morning sun felt good. We left early so that we would be able to make the last 4 mile stretch before high tide. This was the first time that we saw any evidence of bears in the area. We saw bear prints along the wet sand down on the beach, which means just hours before we were there, bears were wondering the beaches. I am SO glad we had no run ins with the bears. After hiking for another 7 miles or so in the early morning along the beach as the sun was rising we reached the end. Walking up the road to our car was a tough stretch. It was difficult walking on the real ground, and our (or mine) bodies were aching with pain.

Shortly after that we were in Garberville eating cheese fries, hamburgers and blackberry shakes in an American Cafe. It hit the spot. I then conked out in the car almost all the way home.