California’s Pacific Coast Highway (aka the PCH, State Route 1, or Highway 1) winds its way along 656 miles of coastline, starting in Orange County and terminating in Mendocino County. The planners originally intended the highway to extend further north, but the geology of the land between Rockport (Mendocino County) and Ferndale (Humboldt County) said otherwise. Builders decided this area was impenetrable and this portion of the California North Coast was left largely undeveloped. The Lost Coast was born. A stretch of remote coast in its wild, natural state? What a gift this is to hikers and backpackers.

Most of the Lost Coast Trail is contained in the King Range National Conservation Area. While the trail has a northern section (25.5 miles from Mattole to Black Sands Beach) and a southern section (nine miles from Hidden Valley to Needle Rock in Sinkyone Wilderness State Park), when people talk about the Lost Coast Trail, they are generally referring to the northern section. In this section the wild power of the ocean crashes against the cliffs of the King Range, whose peaks reach 4,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean. Where sea and land meet is a narrow strip of beach that is the route for the Lost Coast Trail.

The Lost Coast Trail is relatively short - only 25.5 miles - yet the low mileage belies some of the potential difficulties of this hike. There are technically three “impassable zones” (although I think it’s more accurate to call the first of these a “pinch point” instead) - areas that are only passable when the tide is below a certain level. The two main impassable zones are 4-5 miles in length and should only be hiked when the tide is below 2.5-3 feet, so timing your days and hiking times to the tides is imperative. This is also why we ended up taking four days for this hike - on our first day the tide never fell below 2.5 feet, so we had to stop 4.5 miles into our hike when we hit an impassable zone. On another day our window for <2.5 feet was only about four hours and didn’t start until the afternoon. Complicating the planning is the expectation that your pace will be slower than normal due to the sand and rocks, especially in the impassable zones. Many things I read ahead of time said to expect one mph, so that made some of the windows even tighter. However, in the end we found our pace was much higher than that and we ended up having no issues with the impassable zones. The sand and rocks were certainly trying at times though!

This type of hiking was new to us with the tides, terrain, and pace; so we played it safe and got a permit for four days to give ourselves some wiggle room. The good thing about the permit is that it doesn’t require specific campsites (which don’t exist anyway - this area is managed as a true wilderness area with minimal signs and maintenance, there are no official campsites), so we could play it by ear with how we were feeling. A great thing about this hike is that there are ample creeks for fresh water (about every two miles or so) and people typically camp near the creeks - so this gives a lot of flexibility in crafting an itinerary. One other detail to note: not only is a permit required, bear canisters are also required. While we didn’t see any bears, we did see plenty of evidence of them by the tracks on the beach. It seems the bear canisters are doing their jobs as a proactive measure to avoid bear habituation to people and avoiding situations that could lead to having to destroy nuisance bears from bear-people interactions. Bears weren’t an issue, but everything we read ahead of time also warned of ticks, poison oak, and sneaker waves. Sounds like a fun time, right? Despite all the warnings ahead of time, it was a fantastic hike.

The Lost Coast Trail presents some unique challenges compared to other hikes and there are also some logistical challenges in setting up the hike. Shelter Cove is a nearly five hour drive from the San Francisco Airport and it’s an additional two hour drive between Black Sands Beach and Mattole Beach (it’s only 50 miles - but a very windy road). Most people hike north to south, but no matter what direction you are going, if you are doing it as a one way hike you will need to arrange transportation. We booked a shuttle through Lost Coast Adventures and it cost $100/person. Which seems steep, but after riding the shuttle on that road, it seems totally fair (and setting up a car shuttle would be a total pain in the neck). This trip took a little more planning, but it was worth it to be able to hike this remote, gorgeous coastline.

With having to plan ahead, weather is always a tossup and we were crossing our fingers that the weather would be good. It rained the day before our hike, but we got lucky and had overall great weather for our hike. We had fog every day, but also periods of sun and blue skies. We could tell we are used to the desert because the dampness drove us a little crazy. A small price to pay though. We got lucky with the weather and everything else worked out well too. We easily passed through the impassable zones and weren’t swept out to sea by a sneaker wave (*phew*). We had terrific campsites, only saw a few other hikers (our seal to human ratio was very high), and were pleasantly surprised to see an elephant seal colony and to spot otters three times. We felt like we were in true wilderness - it was remote, ruggedly beautiful, and overall a fantastic hike.

These are a few links that were helpful in planning:

Wonderland Guides: The Lost Coast Trail

Lily M. Tang: Guide to Backpacking the Lost Coast Trail

HikingGuy: How to Hike the Lost Coast Trail

King Range Map

NOAA Shelter Cove tides

BLM: King Range Trip Planning Guide

BLM: Tide Safety