This morning, I woke up at 5:45 AM after a long, windy night inside the tent. Throughout the night, the powerful wind was blowing into the walls and base of the tent. If it weren’t for the multiple 10-15 pound rocks, I had placed at the four corners of the interior of the tent, the wind would have caused even more discomfort and instability.
One of the most dreaded parts of backpacking/camping is the 30 minute ordeal between waking up and starting to walk on the trail. The process can be especially frustrating if it’s cold, windy, or if the tent is covered in dew. Among other things, this process consists of rolling/packing up the tent into its carrying bag, rolling/packing up the sleeping bag into its carrying bag, and packing everything neatly to fit inside the backpack. I’ve learned to take this one step at a time and only focus on solely the present-moment task in order to maintain a good attitude during this process.
As with yesterday, I continued passing across many streams throughout the entire day. Even though the navigation map only shows the major streams, there’s probably an average of 1 stream each mile which is flowing strongly enough to be scooped up into the Life Straw water bottle. The plentiful water conditions greatly increased the usefulness and practicality of the Lifestraw water bottle. The Lifestraw bottle is simply dunked into a water source to be filled with water, and as water is sucked through the bottle’s straw, it is simultaneously filtered. This single Lifestraw bottle pretty much deemed my brand new Katadyn water filter and 4 extra 1-liter water bottles, to be dead, useless weight and during this entire backpacking trip. Additionally, I probably saved many hours of time, which would otherwise have to be spent manually pumping hundreds of liters of water through through the Katadyn filtration device.
Throughout today’s walking, I enjoyed focusing on some of the landscapes and thinking about the geological forces that have shaped and continue to shape the landscapes. Sometimes I think about how interesting it would be to be accompanied by a geologist who could explain the landscapes and answer questions about the surrounding landscapes and the landscape’s progression over time. Due to my very limited high-school level education in geology, I usually can’t understand much. However, basic (oversimplified and likely flawed) story lines can be still be formulated by looking at landscapes like the one below:
“The meeting of the North American Plate and Pacific Plate interact at the San Andreas fault to cause uplift/mountain-building along the Lost Coast (where the plates meet.) Over time, the rain and mountain springs erode the uplifted land, creating stream channels that become increasingly prominent over time. These streams transport trees, boulders, and soil to the shore at the bottom of the stream.”
While walking on the Lost Coast Trail, I noticed bear claw prints on the sand. These prints continued for about a mile, and frequently disappeared and reappeared as the tide washed over them at some points. This pattern offered me some peace of mind, by assuring me that the paw prints were formed at least a few hours ago (since enough time had passed for the tide to wash away some of the prints) and I wouldn’t need to constantly be paranoid about a nearby bear.
At the intersection of the coast and Rattlesnake Ridge Road, I passed by a fenced, two-story ranch home and guest house. The home was located in a very remote location, and on that Friday seemed to be occupied by a family, which was taking full advantage of the beautiful weather. It’s possible that the house is a Government-owned rental cabin, but numerous internet searches didn’t provide any additional information about this home.
At 2PM, I arrived at the 4-mile section of the trail that’s impassable at high tide. The tide book I bought at the Petrolia General Store specified that high tide was at 4:19 PM. Based on the current time of 2PM, I was planning on starting the impassable section, but a look down the shoreline caused me to reconsider. The waves were already reaching the toe of the bluffs, rendering the trail impassable. As I relaxed for a few moments, a group of four girls in their mid-20s hiking from the opposite direction were ending the impassable portion of the trail and climbing up to the top of the bluffs where I was resting. They had completed the impassable portion as the high-tide deadline was approaching, and seemed to be exhausted after rushing through that portion of the trail.
The four girls were recent UC-Berkeley grads, currently living in Santa Monica, Orange County, Sacramento, and San Francisco. The four friends had reunited for a weekend backpacking trip and seemed to be serious-minded, determined hikers. When meeting people on a hiking trail (especially on the remote Lost Coast Trail), you already know so much about them before even having a conversation. These are people that could have chosen to meet for a weekend of shopping or drinking/partying, but instead opted to drive three hours north of San Francisco to spend a weekend bonding in perhaps one of the most remote wilderness areas in the state without any cell-phone reception. These are people that have sought out an experience which consists of not showering for a few days, repeatedly covering themselves with deet/sunscreen, carrying 30-pound backpacks for days of painful/uncomfortable walking, and sleeping in tents for two night in a row. What motivates people to endure the aforementioned circumstances? A deep appreciation of nature, appreciation of the value/bonding that comes from spending time in nature, and the desire to overcome difficult challenges and adversity. When considering all of the above, how can you not be excited to meet such people and converse with them? At about 2:30PM, we walked back toward Big Flat River, where we relaxed near a river for a lunch break until 3:45PM. At 3:45, I walked back toward the impassable portion of the trail and waited for the tide to recede so I could continue heading south on the Lost Coast Trail.
Here is some basic information on each of the friends:
- Lazeth
- Lazeth is a paralegal working in Downtown LA and living in Santa Monica. After taking a legal/social justice class at Berkeley, she became inspired to pursue a career in law. She finds meaning in her work through helping underprivileged people to know and exercise their housing rights. She plans on attending Law school in Southern California
- Melanie Chu
- About a month ago, Melanie arrived back in California after a 6.5 month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia. She visited numerous countries during this trip, and spent a total of just $8,000 during her trip. She highly recommended SE Asia as a backpacking destination, offering suggestions such as flying into Vietnam or Thailand (the destination for the cheapest flights) and slowing making my way either “West to East” or “East to West.” She mentioned that she never felt unsafe or in-danger during her trip
- Chelsea
- Chelsea is the mastermind/planner of the trip. She seemed to be a very strong hiker and confident in her abilities
- Girl working at the Irvine Company
- The last girl was married, living in Orange County, and working as a financial planner at the Irvine Company. She knew a lot about the history of the company and shared some interesting information, such as the 9,000 residential-home-lot inventory of the Irvine Company, and that the Irvine Company was working on many refinances.
From about 4PM to 6PM, I sat, stood, paced, and waited at the toe of the bluffs for the tide to recede. Unfortunately, it didn’t recede much (if at all) during that time. At 6PM, I decided that as the next large wave washed back into the ocean, I would run around the bend and hopefully make it to the next dry area before the next large wave arrived. This strategy worked well and I was able to walk about 15 minutes until the next truly “impassable” section. At this section, I once again ran during the seconds separating the large waves, eventually completely passing the two short, truly “impassable” portions. I feel bad for the several groups of hikers who were still waiting for hours for the tide to recede, when they could have easily continued hiking just by crossing two minor, impassable portions at around 6PM.
At about 8PM, I was continuing walking along the remote, quiet beach between Buck Creek and Horse Mountain Creek. Listening to an audiobook, I waved from afar when noticing a couple sitting on a log at the far edge of the sand. Realizing I had my headphones on, the lady approached. As she approached within audible distance, she mentioned that her and her now-fiance had just become engaged, and asked me to take a photo of the newly-engaged couple. I was a bit taken aback/excited about the whole situation and agreed to take a photo of Mitch and Rachel. It was exciting to be the first person to come across the blissful couple after the proposal/acceptance. Mitch and Rachel had known each other for three years, and had been dating for one year. I wasn’t paying too much attention, but noticed there was a bottle of wine/champagne and a backpack near the log. Given that they were about 2 miles from the nearest trailhead and the sun was setting, there’s a good chance that they were planning on spending the night camping near the beach. If not, they would have had to walk at least one hour at night to arrive at Black Sands beach that night.
The idea of proposing on the remote Lost Coast trail seems like a great idea for a few reasons. First of all, there’s a good chance it was a complete surprise to Rachel, who likely wasn’t expecting to become engaged dressed in hiking clothes on a walk at the beach. Also, within the past few years, proposals seem to have become much less intimate and personal. Nowadays, within a few minutes of becoming engaged, newly-engaged couple have likely already notified their close friends/relatives with news of the engagement, and have shared a picture/post on Facebook which has already been liked and commented on by dozens or even hundreds of people. This widespread and immediate publicizing of such an intimate, special experience may drain some of the excitement from the couple and distract them from fully extracting and experiencing every single emotion that comes during, after, and a few hours after the experience. However, I imagine that being together on the Lost Coast with no cell phone reception, no family, and no distractions may have made this experience more special, long-lasting and intimate. This additional few hours or night (if they camped) of time together with their shared excitement/bliss/dreams could not have been possible in any other location than the Lost Coast Trail.
Anyways, congratulations to Mitch and Rachel on your engagement. I am grateful for the privilege of having witnessed such a special experience. Because romantic situations always seem to remind me of a Vanessa Carlton song, I’ll share/dedicate “Home” to this experience: May you both experience the feeling of being home when you’re together, whether you’re on the Lost Coast, in the car, or wherever your path takes you.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-RHfaJgHBE]
I continued walking on the beach, until arriving at Horse Mountain Creek at about 9:15PM. I ordinarily wouldn’t feel comfortable walking that late into the night, but walking on the beach made me feel more comfortable and safe from wildlife or losing track of my location.
