Prelude
The rugged and mountainous coastal region of Northern California has long been resistant to the kind of development that has swallowed the rest of the California coast. Road access into the region has always been limited, and in the 1930s the already sparsely populated area suffered further depopulation. In the early 1980s the dream of developing the region was finally killed off when the engineers conceded that they would not be able to extend the famed Pacific Coast Highway through the rugged terrain and the road was routed inland. Today the Lost Coast is maintained as wilderness through the Kings Range Conservation Area and is home to one of the premier backpacking trips in the country, The Lost Coast Trail. Two one way roads over the mountains lead to trailheads at either end.
We are staying the night in a sweet Shelter Cove hotel on the water. A pre arranged shuttle will drive us to Mattole Beach, where we will begin a 25 mile trip back to our car. Along the way we will need to negotiate three tidal zones only passable at low tides. A call I just made to the Bureau of Land Management confirmed that the only way through the four and a half mile second zone tomorrow requires leaving at first light, around 5:30 a.m. Not what I hoped to hear, but what I expected from studying the tide charts. For once I was wanting for someone to tell me I’m wrong. And the last tidal zone will require a similar early start on Thursday. Or Friday. Whenever we make it there. The mimosa flight I had with breakfast helped me accept the bad news with equanimity. A great way to start what promises to be a great adventure.
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Day 1: Blowing In The Wind
The Lost Coast Trail is 25 miles long from trailhead to trailhead. The shuttle that takes you from your car to the starting point takes a full two hours. Our driver from Lost Coast Adventures met us promptly at 12:30, gave us a short orientation about what to expect on the trail, and loaded us up into a large Mercedes Sprinter van. There were ten of us intrepid hikers, although only seven of us were hiking out today and the others were overnighting at the trailhead.
Before we set off the driver cautioned us about motion sickness, and I can see why. The rough roads twisted and turned through the mountains, at some points reduced to one lane by washouts, with sections that were only dirt and gravel. The young woman driving us handled the switchbacks with aplomb, and the fact that she made this trip twice a day showed in the way she handled the big ten passenger van. I found myself thinking how glad I was we hadn’t tried to drive ourselves. If Kim had been driving I would have probably thrown up and peed my pants.
At the trailhead we strapped on our packs and set off down the beach. We made decent time and sailed through the first, short tidal zone before our 5 pm deadline. Clear blue skies, a 70 degree day, and pounding ocean surf put a little spring in my step, at least to start. The only fly in our soup was a fierce, fierce wind. Twice it literally knocked Kim over, with a forty pound pack, and it was a struggle to keep moving in a straight line.
We made a short stop at the Punta Gorda lighthouse, the most remote in California, and took some pictures. Of course I had to climb the old spiral metal stairs to the top. The lighthouse is no longer manned and is really just an empty shell, but it was fun to visit. We pushed on, as we hadn’t started until almost 3 pm, and we had five miles to do today.
A short while after leaving the lighthouse the trail climbed up a little slope through a patch of shrubs. Just at that point one of those predicted 50 mph wind gusts hit me and I stumbled and planted my hitherto trusty hiking pole to keep from falling, but the combination of force and weight proved too much, and it snapped! The result was quite a spectacular wipe out, if I do say so myself. I mean, Big Daddy sprawled all over that damn hill. I ended up flat on my back in the bushes, surrounded by poison oak, staring up at the clear blue sky and wondering how it all went so wrong. It took me a minute to realize that my right hand was only holding a stub of a hiking pole. I extricated myself from the bushes with only minor scrapes and scratches, nothing hurt but my pride.
We made it to camp without further incident and set up on a sweet spot on a bluff overlooking the ocean. The place was called Sea Lion Gulch, due to the sea lions that populated a large rock just offshore. It’s the season for them to be in residence, and they frolicked and caroused in the sun, all the while making a terrible racket. Other than the still strong winds it was a beautiful clear night, so I slept cowboy under a blanket of stars and went to sleep serenaded by the sound of wind and surf, with an occasional sea lion bellow thrown in for counterpoint.
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Day 2: The Great Tent Disaster
Today was the day we were supposed to leave at 5 a.m. to make it through the four mile impassable tidal zone before the tide came fully in. This was the advice from the ranger when I called the local BLM office. Her reason was that the afternoon low tide didn’t reach the safe passable threshold of 2.5 feet, and wasn’t low enough for long enough to make it through the entire zone. I had already learned that all tides are not created equal. There are “low” low tides, and there are “high” low tides, and currently the lower low tide is in the middle of the night, and the afternoon tide is a higher low tide. Well, let me just state plainly that I ignored her advice. I had printed the tide charts and knew the low tide reached a threshold of 2.7 feet at 2:30 p.m., just above the recommended threshold. I know the rangers have to tow the line and be uber conservative in their advice, but dammit we’re on vacation, and I’m not a morning person. Plus I discovered I had already somehow punctured my air mattress and my last several hours were spent tossing and turning on the hard ground.
We packed up and set off about 11:15, the idea being to follow the receding tide out. Parts of the trail were a real trail and followed across the top of an elevated area, allowing us to make good time, but long parts followed the beach and meant slogging through sand or across hundreds of yards of rocks, which was very slow and difficult going. In the event we made the last pinch point around an outcrop of rock at 2:25, with low tide at 2:30, and were able to follow the receding wave and skirt on through. All according to plan so far.
We hiked another mile or so and set up camp at a place called Spanish Flats, a vast stretch of sea grass on an embankment up from the beach. The site had a beautiful view of the ocean, but was totally exposed, and the sun beat down relentlessly. After resting for a while I decided to set up my little tent, for some shade if nothing else. I attached the mesh body to the poles and started to stake out the corner.
Disaster comes in many forms. Sometimes loud and violent, sometimes in the still of the night, and sometimes in the most mundane and ordinary ways. As I began to stake the tent, the wind, until then quiet, blew up a sudden gust and snatched it from my grasp. The wind caught the floor and it sailed off like a kite, with me in pursuit. I offer readers their first ridiculous image of the day, a tent sailing above a field of sea grass, with an old man running hell bent for leather after it. I won’t lie. If it hadn’t been my tent, I would have laughed. This farce continued for several hundred yards. I followed on the chance the wind would pause and it would snag on driftwood, but fully expected it to be blown out to sea. If only it had. In an unexpected twist, it got to the mouth of a small canyon carved by a little stream of water coming down from the mountains. The wind took that tent and blew it right up that canyon. I watched as it bounced off the walls before turning into a gully coming in from the left.
The stream of water was only visible for a short distance from the mouth, after which it became hidden by dense undergrowth all the way up the canyon. The sides of the canyon were steep and were covered with patches of prickly, thorny shrubs and poison oak, interspersed with patches of bare dirt. It was obvious to any rational person that my tent was lost, irretrievably out of reach, and I am a rational person. Usually. But let me tell you about Bad Brian. He’s a foolish, pig headed, irrational bastard, and he sometimes comes out at the worst moments.
I plunged into the thicket of vegetation hiding the little stream and started bushwhacking up the canyon, guided by feeling my feet in the water. After a couple of hundred yards I left the vegetation and started up the hill, using any shrub or handhold I could find to inch my way up the steep slope. I got to within a couple of hundred feet of my tent and could see it clearly on the other side of the gully that cut into the canyon, but I couldn’t get any further. There was nothing to hold onto, and I was fast using up what strength I had left after a hard day of hiking. I had to stop and throw up, due to the heat and exertion, I guess, but it was really mostly just dry heaves, since I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
Now of course was the time to give it up, but if you’ve seen Star Wars, you know the power of the Dark Side. Bad Brian was strong today. I slipped and slid down the hill, plunged back into the undergrowth, and followed the little stream almost to the mouth, where I started back up the slope from a different direction, hoping to angle up to the gully. I grunted and sweated through shrubs and dirt and poison oak, dripping with sweat, before I got to within a hundred feet of it or so. So tantalizingly close. I wish I could tell you I made it all the way and retrieved my little tent, and stalwart perseverance was rewarded by a just and benevolent universe, but I already told you it was impossible to get to. I tried to scrabble up the steep dirt patch, digging at the dirt, but progress was measured in inches. Eventually one of my feet lost purchase and I slid about twenty feet down the slope before I could stop myself. If you think the image of an old man chasing a flying tent through the sea grass was ridiculous, I present to you the same anti hero, a while later, clinging to the dirt on the side of a hill, unable to climb up, drenched in sweat and at the point of exhaustion, trying to figure out how to dry heave without dislodging himself and tumbling down into the thicket of vegetation. Ridiculous.
I admitted defeat, as much for self preservation as anything. My dry heaves did slide me down the hill a few feet, but I found if I dug in I could control the descent a little, so I angled down to my right, sliding on by butt through dirt and gravel and shrubs and poison oak, until I eventually reached the little stream and plunged in, bushwhacking down one last time. At the mouth of the creek I stumbled across the beach to the water and as a wave receded I lay down in the sand, clothes and all, and waited for the next wave to wash over me, to soothe my cuts and scratches, not to mention my sunburn. The first instant was heaven, until the freezing water took my breath away. I tried to roll over and crawl out of the water before the next wave came, but I caught two more before I managed to stagger onto the beach. I think never in my life have I expended so much effort to so little effect. I curse you, Spanish Flats.
I plodded up the beach towards camp until I came to a break in the embankment that let me clamber up onto the flats and immediately ran into Kim going to get water. He had been sheltering in his tent, oblivious to the whole tragicomedy playing out outside his door, so I mumbled a brief explanation through parched lips and stumbled on. Back at camp I gulped down an entire liter of water and crawled into my sleeping bag, where I remained for many hours. When Kim returned I boiled water for supper, from my sleeping bag, and enjoyed some freeze dried chicken and dumplings washed down with a liter of lemonade while watching the seascape. After dinner I drifted into a half awake stupor as the sun set and remained so until a blanket of stars appeared, stretching endlessly over the ocean. I thought about a t-shirt I had seen a few weeks back with a caricature of the Buddha on it and a caption that read “Let That Shit Go”. Then I rolled over and went to sleep thinking about whether I could climb the steep ridge behind our campsite in the morning and follow it to a point above the gully which had my tent and work my way down. Letting go is easy to say, but hard to do.
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Day 3: Terror in the Night
Rational Brian was back in charge this morning. I didn’t have half a day to track down a wayward tent that was probably shredded anyway, and we have a schedule to keep, so I resigned myself to sleeping cowboy every night for the rest of the trip. Not that I mind much, as I like sleeping out under the stars, and the weather forecast was for clear skies. But tents have other uses besides weather protection. Tonight, for example, we were camping somewhere near a place called Rattlesnake Ridge. I wonder why they call it that? I hate rattlesnakes.
We lingered in camp enjoying the cool morning breeze but eventually roused ourselves for our seven mile hike. The views of the ocean slamming the curving, mountainous coastline were stunning throughout. As yesterday, the sections over sandy or rocky beaches slowed us down considerably, and the sun beat down relentlessly. I encouraged Kim onward by telling him that if we made it to Big Flat Creek we could take a layover day tomorrow, as I had one built into our itinerary.
We camped near the mouth of the creek, where the water spills out of the trees and onto the rocky beach. Kim found a nice flat spot for his tent and I found a nice flat spot for my sleeping bag next to a big log. Kim cautioned me about rattlesnakes sheltering in dry wood, but in the end it wasn’t snakes I needed to worry about. It’s usually the thing you don’t see coming that gets you.
A little after 1 a.m. I awoke to the sound of scratching coming from the other side of my backpack, which was just behind me. I turned my phone flashlight on and raised up to take a look, expecting to find a mouse or chipmunk. Instead, three feet from my head I looked straight into the eyes of a skunk. A skunk, seriously? Why of all things? Give me a grumpy bear any day. I backed away with measured movements while he continued to work at my pack, totally unperturbed by my presence. We had stored all our food in bear vaults we were required to bring, and taken these a ways from camp, so there was nothing for him, but something intrigued him. I watched from a few yards away and when he showed no signs of leaving I started throwing rocks in his direction, not to hit him but to make some noise and distract him away. He eventually wandered back into the bushes and I grabbed my sleeping bag and moved it a short distance away.
I eventually managed to drift off again but hadn’t been asleep long when I was awoken again. I turned on my flashlight and there was Mr. Skunk, sitting on a log a few feet away watching me. He showed no fear and if anything bore himself with an almost cocky confidence, as if to say “I’m not afraid of you. I can take you any time I want you”. Which was true. I carefully extracted myself from my sleeping bag, grabbed a few personal items, trudged through the darkness out into the open, and set up a sleeping spot among the driftwood. Along the way I ran into a couple of deer taking a stroll on the beach, although at first all I could see were their reflective eyes in the dark, and they gave me a start. Maybe I was already a little jumpy. My site wasn’t the nicest place to sleep, but it appeared to be skunk free, which is what you’re looking for at two o’clock in the morning.
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Day 4: A Day of Leisure
Thankfully today was a layover day. I was feeling a little beat down and tired, and I knew Kim wouldn’t complain about a day of leisure. I didn’t sleep well last night, what with being terrorized by a skunk and all. I spent the day the way I spend most layover days, reading, writing, and in quiet contemplation on the greater questions, along with a little walking on the beach. Kim is well into his Hemingway phase and spent several hours laboring through Across the River and into the Trees. Bless his heart. Thankfully he’s already read the good stuff.
After a leisurely dinner and some amiable conversation we retired for the evening. I felt a little tired for some reason, and ominously, patches of poison oak rash began to break out on various parts of my body. Sometime in the evening I began to feel nauseous.
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Day 5: Walking on the Edge of Disaster
*For reasons to become obvious, these next entries were written some time after the events in question.
I awoke feeling weak and more nauseated than the night before. I could barely keep down half a breakfast bar and began suffering dry heaves. Our plan was to hike through the last four mile tidal zone and finish out the hike tomorrow, meaning we were still on a schedule. I roused myself and we set off to make the tide. The sun beat down ferociously and I only made it a couple of miles before needing to stop. I told him we should make camp for the day and see if I felt any better the next day, because I wasn’t able to continue. We were still in the tidal zone, but at a creek junction, so we hiked up into the woods a bit and made camp. I spent the rest of the day and the night in my sleeping bag.
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Day 6: Brian has a Bad Day
The morning did not bring a miraculous improvement to my condition. I couldn’t eat and couldn’t even keep water down without throwing it back up, and I was so weak I could only stand for a few minutes at a time. My breathing had become labored. The poison oak rashes had also spread and the swelling made my right leg look like elephant leg. Needless to say we were in a bit of a bind. We were still in the tidal zone and had to follow the law of the tide. I struggled mightily just to load my pack, and when finished I had to rest before starting. From the beach below our camp we could see Shelter Cove, our destination, at the end of a long sweeping arc of the coast, but though only a few miles it seemed an insurmountable distance.
Sometimes all you can do is to give her a go and see what transpires, so we strapped on packs and set off. I made it a couple of hundred yards down the beach before I collapsed in the sand, unable to take another step. I remember telling Kim several times “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” I buried my head in the sand next to a large rock, seeking some kind of relief from the relentless sun. After letting me rest for a an unknown length of time Kim gently shook my shoulder and said we should go back to our original camp. I struggled about halfway before collapsing again. I had lost all sense of time, so whether I lay there ten minutes or an hour it’s hard to say. Kim carried his pack back to camp and then came back and carried mine while encouraging me on for the short distance. At our original camp he unpacked my sleeping bag and helped me crawl on it, where I lay for an indeterminate length of time, in a stupor of misery, vaguely aware of Kim nearby keeping an eye on me. Finally I forced myself to turn towards him and utter the words neither of us had uttered in over forty years, and never wanted to hear. “I think we need to think about a rescue.”
In spite of the cascading series of disasters I had experienced, some of my own making, my good fortune did not desert me on two crucial points. First, we had not had cell service at any point in our trip until now, when Kim could pick up a weak signal down on the beach, I guess because we were only a few miles from the end. Second, I was fortunate in my choice of friend and hiking partner. If there is a hero in this tale of misbegotten adventure, it’s Kimbrell Thomson. He was a calm and steady presence throughout my long ordeal, always patient, doing what needed to be done, pushing me when I need to be pushed, letting me be when needed, and arranging my subsequent rescue with unflappable efficiency. Well done, Mr. Thomson. Well done indeed. If any of you have enjoyed reading these posts I encourage you to send Mr. Thomson a well deserved “Atta Boy!” You might say he’s the reason I live to tell the tale.
Kim walked down to the beach and called the Bureau of Land Management office responsible for the wilderness area, and after several phone calls back and forth told me that a Coast Guard rescue helicopter had been dispatched to pick me up on the beach. He carried my pack down to the beach while I lay huddled on my sleeping bag. Eventually it was time move and I staggered down to the beach. The Coast Guard copter came flying down the coast, saw us waving, made a pass to identify a landing spot, then circled around again and landed expertly on a small flat stretch of sand near the water’s edge. I remember the feel of the gritty beach sand being flung against my face by the blades as we watched the helicopter land and the Coast Guard member got out and came to get me. He insisted on helping me to the chopper, then strapped me in, and we flew away, leaving Kim on the beach to hike back to the car on his own.
By this time I existed in a twilight zone of misery where time had no meaning, vaguely aware of things happening around me but not a part of them. I remember thinking how lovely the view of the surf pounding against the cliffs was from up here. I remember several times the kindly Coast Guard member putting his hand on my shoulder and telling me I needed to stay awake, although I couldn’t see why. They told me the flight would take half an hour, but they could have told me anything. Then we were there, landing on the hospital pad in Eureka, California. I think it was about 6 p.m. I was loaded on a stretcher and taken to the ER, where they gave me a liter of fluid, took some blood for tests, and gave me an anti nausea shot. Nurses came and went, a doctor came in and questioned me about symptoms, onset time, etc. When the lab tests came back they came in immediately and hooked up two more bags of fluid in tandem. My blood pressure was good but my heart rate remained elevated above 100. I remember the doctor telling me that would go down as I became hydrated. An EKG and chest x-ray followed at intervals I could not judge. At some point they gave me a shot for my poison oak. Then a second shot for nausea. As the clock approached midnight they gave me a cup of ice water, which stayed down and was followed by a turkey sandwich, so good, which also stayed down and was the first thing I had eaten for the better part of two days. When the doctor came back I was feeling well enough to ask him what he thought the cause was. He said the symptoms were consistent with food poisoning, but I wonder if somehow getting some bad water may have also been a possibility. As the clock crept toward 1 a.m. they decided they didn’t want to keep me anymore. Since I had no car, much less a place to go, they offered to call me a cab. It ended up taking an hour and a half.
While I waited I went on booking.com and searched hotels. On the Saturday night of Independence Day week there were literally only a handful of rooms available in the entire area, and few allowed middle of the night check in. Eventually I found the last room at the Clarion Hotel, which also allowed late check in. The booking required prepayment, which I did, and got my confirmation. When the cab eventually arrived a little after 2:30, the driver took me downtown, dropped me off outside the lobby, and drove away. Inside the lobby the clerk looked at me blankly and said “what room?” I patiently showed him my paid receipt, because patience was all I had left, to which he replied “I understand sir, but we simply don’t have any rooms at all available. Not a single one.” Moments later I found myself wandering the dark and empty streets of Eureka, California, personally filthy and still wearing my dirty hiking clothes, carrying my backpack, and trying to find some place that still had a room and would check me in at 3 in the morning. I eventually connected with the Red Lion Inn, not far away, which had a single room listed as being available, but the new-to-the job clerk could not figure out how to force the system to let her book the room at that hour, as the daily audit had closed. She was a kind soul, though, and worked at it until she found a workaround. I staggered to my room, about as far from the lobby as possible, half dragging my backpack. Once inside I stripped out of my clothes and prepared to wash the grime away. As I stepped into the shower I got one of those last little twists of the knife you sometimes get when things are going against you. There was no soap, anywhere. So I put my filthy clothes back on, trudged back to the lobby for soap, and came back and tried again. After scrubbing myself as much as I could I dragged myself out and melted onto the bed. The clock read 4:50 a.m.
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Afterward
On the morning after my rescue Kim hiked the last five miles out to Shelter Cove to pick up our car. He made the hike in under two and a half hours, which may not sound impressive, but over the rocky beach he had to traverse was a pretty good pace. The trail was shrouded in fog the whole way, and I am heartsick that I missed it. A nice walk in the fog would have been a welcome change from the fierce sun. He made the car before noon and arrived at my hotel in Eureka at 1:30, where he showered and we loaded up for the long drive back to San Francisco.
Even though I was a little run down from my previous day’s experiences, I couldn’t manage to sleep past 8:30. After tossing and turning for an hour and watching TV for another hour or so, I finally decided to get dressed and go get some nourishment. My target was a big, juicy burger at the Lost Coast Brewery, which had been on my original list for this trip as a stop on the way to what had been last night’s planned camping destination, Redwood National Park. This was going to be a Mystery Night for Kim, but turned into another trip casualty, joining an already impressive list. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Brew Pub. Just down and across the street from the hotel, at the crack of noon, I passed a little Thai eatery called Ginger, which had apparently just opened. Before I knew it, like an olfactory Pied Piper, I was lead across the street and through the doors, the first customer of the day. I feasted on crispy chicken, peppers and onions with white rice and accompanied by a plate of pickled vegetables, all washed down with two big glasses of ice cold coke and served by a smiling and attentive server. I was beginning to think the dark clouds were lifting.
The drive back to San Francisco took us about five hours. Along the way we stopped for gas. For some reason we had some problems with the gas pump and the attendant came out to help us. Trying to get out of his way I tripped on the hose and went down hard, jamming my thumb. I still can’t grasp or hold anything with my left hand. We did manage to make it the rest of the way to the hotel without me doing further injury to myself, where we holed up and ordered pizza at ten o’clock at night. The next morning I got up to return the rental car and catch my flight, as Kim’s left later in the day. Then, because of course this blighted trip couldn’t end in any other way, the rental car wouldn’t start. Dead battery. I called the service number and made arrangements for alternate transport, but didn’t need it. The truck came quickly and jumped the battery, and naturally my flight was delayed an hour, so that I was able to make it to the airport and limp to my gate on my poison oak swollen legs just as they announced boarding.
I’m home now, dealing with the aftermath and counting my losses. On the first day I broke my hiking pole and took a great fall, then punctured my sleeping pad and slept on the hard ground the rest of the time. The next day I lost my tent to the wind, so I was able to sleep outside on the hard ground. Then I got poison oak over large parts of my body, causing my legs to swell and walking to become painful. Then I was terrorized by a skunk, while sleeping outside. Then I got a stomach ailment that caused me to throw up for two days, becoming severely dehydrated and causing me to collapse on the beach, and ultimately need to be evacuated by Coast Guard helicopter. After release from the ER at 2 a.m. I had to walk the empty streets of Eureka looking for an available room. Then, as the dark cherry on a bitter cake, I found that sometime during my last two days spent in a stupor of misery I had managed to lose our brand new Om-System camera. Here at home I’m on a 15 day regimen of steroids to combat my poison oak, and it’s making me crazy(er).
It’s not the string of troubles that bothers me, but the sense of…failure. I’ve never not finished a hike before, much less needed to be rescued. My failure to finish the hike chews at my soul in a way few could understand. I told Lynn that I need a cleansing ceremony, but maybe this trip was my cleansing ceremony, an offering required by the universe for all the many years of joy I’ve known by adventuring into the wilderness. Or maybe I just had a random string of bad luck, leavened by equally bad judgment. I’ll need to contemplate this on my next layover day.
The Walking Man will return.
